I remember seeing the first film in this series, Bill & Ted's excellent adventure, a very long time ago. Even though I've pretty much forgotten everything about it, I do remember being amused by how they pronounced the name "Socrates" (and maybe "Freud" too, perhaps?). Despite having forgotten that first film, I do remember feeling positive about it. That pretty much sums up how I feel about this long-delayed third instalment of the series. Truth be told, I'm not even sure that I saw the sequel to that first film, Bill & Ted's bogus journey, which would illustrate, in case I did actually see it a very long time ago, the nature of these films...they're pretty forgettable but likeable enough whilst viewing them at the time. This time around Bill and Ted must "unite the world" with their music and doing so attains a level of cosmic significance that I did not anticipate.
That being said, I would recommend that people start watching this series from the beginning, at least, in order to familiarise themselves with the concept, namely, two 'slacker' teenagers who somehow attain historical importance in the future but need help from those people in the future in order to...attain historical importance. Once again I have to make my usual observation on time travel films that I don't find them coherent. I said that about the recent film "Tenet" and seeing what I've just written about the first Bill & Ted film now, the paradox strikes me with even greater force. If I didn't see the first sequel to Bill & Ted, that didn't affect my ability to follow what was happening in this latest instalment...apart from one or two (possibly more?) moments in the film. For instance, I was amused in this film with things that Death said about being in Bill & Ted's band (Wyld Stallyns), even though I didn't remember seeing that, assuming that I had. In any case, I now feel that maybe I should take a refresher viewing of Bill & Ted's bogus journey...one of these days.
Obviously with Keanu Reeves (Ted) and Alex Winter (Bill) being middle-aged men now, their characters are no longer spring chickens, so to speak. They are parents now. Ted has a daughter, 'Billie' as does Bill, who called his "Theadora" (played by Samara Weaving, who I've learned is the niece of Hugo Weaving, who played a major role in the classic film "The Matrix", which starred...Keanu Reeves!). The girls are teenagers and take after their parents. Personally, I think that this resemblance to their parents could have been milked for more laughs by increasing the caricature of their parents quotient. I'm not sure if there are any more sequels over the horizon for Bill and Ted or their daughters, but I'm not sure that the characters of the daughters are strong enough to keep this franchise going by themselves.
Revisiting Bill and Ted all these decades later, I have to say that only Alex Winter retained the youthful spark and charm of Bill. You could see glimpses of his earlier incarnation. At times he could be a bit wooden in his delivery but you could easily attribute that to the character that he was playing. Keanu Reeves just seems older and he seems to have lost the spark that I assume was in the original film. Having a deeper voice doesn't help in any case.
Again, the film is amusing. Most of the humour for me derives in seeing the various incarnations of Bill and Ted (being a time travel film, they meet themselves often at different points in time, which is part of the plot of the film). I liked the versions of themselves which spoke with English accents. If this was done by Keanu and Alex, then I commend them for it. It's perhaps for the best that they didn't have to attempt an Australian accent, as I tend to find attempts by Americans at this as 'so bad it's really, really bad'! I was also amused by their new song at the start of the film, played at a wedding. That's another scene where I had definitely forgotten characters from the first film presumably, or had forgotten character history updates in the sequel.
If I've got criticisms to make of this film it would be:
Random observations:
My initial instinct was to score this film 70% but I made a late decision to mark it down a tad, for being a slight film. Adding the "+" to my score of 65 allows me to add an extra star here on IMDB (I don't round up otherwise).
Amiable and amusing but slight.
That being said, I would recommend that people start watching this series from the beginning, at least, in order to familiarise themselves with the concept, namely, two 'slacker' teenagers who somehow attain historical importance in the future but need help from those people in the future in order to...attain historical importance. Once again I have to make my usual observation on time travel films that I don't find them coherent. I said that about the recent film "Tenet" and seeing what I've just written about the first Bill & Ted film now, the paradox strikes me with even greater force. If I didn't see the first sequel to Bill & Ted, that didn't affect my ability to follow what was happening in this latest instalment...apart from one or two (possibly more?) moments in the film. For instance, I was amused in this film with things that Death said about being in Bill & Ted's band (Wyld Stallyns), even though I didn't remember seeing that, assuming that I had. In any case, I now feel that maybe I should take a refresher viewing of Bill & Ted's bogus journey...one of these days.
Obviously with Keanu Reeves (Ted) and Alex Winter (Bill) being middle-aged men now, their characters are no longer spring chickens, so to speak. They are parents now. Ted has a daughter, 'Billie' as does Bill, who called his "Theadora" (played by Samara Weaving, who I've learned is the niece of Hugo Weaving, who played a major role in the classic film "The Matrix", which starred...Keanu Reeves!). The girls are teenagers and take after their parents. Personally, I think that this resemblance to their parents could have been milked for more laughs by increasing the caricature of their parents quotient. I'm not sure if there are any more sequels over the horizon for Bill and Ted or their daughters, but I'm not sure that the characters of the daughters are strong enough to keep this franchise going by themselves.
Revisiting Bill and Ted all these decades later, I have to say that only Alex Winter retained the youthful spark and charm of Bill. You could see glimpses of his earlier incarnation. At times he could be a bit wooden in his delivery but you could easily attribute that to the character that he was playing. Keanu Reeves just seems older and he seems to have lost the spark that I assume was in the original film. Having a deeper voice doesn't help in any case.
Again, the film is amusing. Most of the humour for me derives in seeing the various incarnations of Bill and Ted (being a time travel film, they meet themselves often at different points in time, which is part of the plot of the film). I liked the versions of themselves which spoke with English accents. If this was done by Keanu and Alex, then I commend them for it. It's perhaps for the best that they didn't have to attempt an Australian accent, as I tend to find attempts by Americans at this as 'so bad it's really, really bad'! I was also amused by their new song at the start of the film, played at a wedding. That's another scene where I had definitely forgotten characters from the first film presumably, or had forgotten character history updates in the sequel.
If I've got criticisms to make of this film it would be:
- There are amusing newspaper articles about Bill and Ted shown at the start of the film but these go by so quickly that I couldn't comprehend all of them.
- The dialogue is sometimes hard to comprehend.
Random observations:
- I liked the resolution to the film, as far the song which 'unites the world'. By than I mean both for the song's nature and how that works.
- On a metaphysical note, it was interesting to see who goes to Hell.
- I wonder whether a 18th century musician would treat a certain guitar legend the way that he did (once again, the film has famous figures in history turning up as characters in the story).
- I'm not sure if the thought had struck me before in this series...Bill and Ted travel through time in a telephone booth...is that an obvious reference to the classic English TV series Doctor Who?
- I liked the grungy electric guitar riff for the closing credits.
- The end credits also have an 'In memory' tribute to Dustin (?) Smith (?). I wonder who he was.
My initial instinct was to score this film 70% but I made a late decision to mark it down a tad, for being a slight film. Adding the "+" to my score of 65 allows me to add an extra star here on IMDB (I don't round up otherwise).
Amiable and amusing but slight.