Bill And Ted Face The Music (2020)

There's a sweet message at the heart of Bill And Ted Save The Music. In fact, there are a couple of sweet messages. This will come as no surprise to fans of the previous two movies, in which our hapless heroes stumbled on adventures with a kindness and optimism to make up for their lack of intelligence. The film itself may be the weakest of the three, but maybe it's just what we need in the midst of the dumpster fire that is 2020.

The plot doesn't take long to get going at all. Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are still friends, and still married to the two princesses (Joanna, played by Jayma Mays this time, and Elizabeth, played by Erinn Hayes). There are also two daughters, Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving). They also still have yet to write and perform the one song that will keep time and space holding together, something that becomes a much more pressing concern when they are visited from the future by Kelly (Kristen Schaal) and informed that the song is needed in a matter of hours. Unable to think of anything, Bill and Ted come up with the idea of travelling to see their future selves to get the song they will know by then. Things start to get complicated.

Written once again by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, and bringing back a lot of the same cast members able to reprise supporting roles (including William Sadler as Death, Hal Landon Jr. as Ted's father, and even Amy Stoch as Missy), this is a film that feels made by people with their heart in the right place. Director Dean Parisot should also be a good choice, and he handles everything well enough.

It's a hard film to dislike, and I don't. It's also hard for me to pin down exactly why I didn't love it. The characters feel too old for their shenanigans this time around, but that is kind of the point. The plot does complex in a childishly simple way, but that is also part of the appeal. It has plenty of little touches for fans to enjoy while never keeping newcomers in the dark. What's not to appreciate about that?

I'm really not sure. There was just something that felt odd this time, and I am not completely unconvinced that my own mixed feelings to the film don't stem from the sweetness of it being juxtaposed against what may well be the personal worst year of my life (so far).

Winter and Reeves are great in the lead roles, as expected. They may have a little less energy this time around, in their main incarnations, but they certainly love these characters, and clearly have fun. Weaving and Lundy-Paine are saddled with having to do impressions of their onscreen dads, which is something performed better by the former than the latter. Sadler is yet again a highlight, Schaal is a good time-travelling agent, and Jillian Bell is a lot of fun in her small role (playing a marriage counsellor). Anthony Carrigan is less enjoyable, playing a killer robot sent to take care of Bill and Ted, and the portrayals of Jimi Hendrix and Louis Armstrong feel a bit off, but these characters are all offset by everything else going on.

You also get some fun cameos, plenty of unexpected wisdom from Kid Cudi, and impressive plotting that leads us to an ending that manages to be both slightly unexpected and yet also quite predictable and satisfying (I hope that makes sense when you see it).

Lots of people loved this. I liked it. I think it is a distraction that many people will enjoy just now, more for the fact that it's appropriately available at a time when it feels almost needed than the actual quality of the final product. 

6/10

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Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo) are a pair of plumbers who don't seem to be having much luck lately. After losing out on another job to a competitor they end up stopping when their van temporarily breaks down. And that's when Luigi meets Daisy (Samantha Mathis), a young woman working on an archaeological dig. Move forward a couple of scenes and, for reasons I won't go into right now, Daisy has been whisked away into an alternative dimension, and Luigi and Mario set out to rescue her in a strange land overruled by the harsh, power-hungry King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).

It's hard to pin down just where Super Mario Bros. went so wrong in the transition from videogame to big screen outing, but the main thing to point out, surely, is that the film does absolutely nothing to please fans of the game. Taken just as a film, it's an interesting failure. Taken as a film version of the Nintendo property, it's just a failure.

Leguizamo is the better of the central pairing, having some fun as the open-minded and optimistic Luigi, while Hoskins does okay, wobbly accent aside. He at least looks the part. Mathis is there to be put in peril, and she does that. Thankfully, Hopper livens up every scene that he's in. Film fans know that Hopper can be a great villain, and this is a family-friendly baddie that he portrays with gusto. Fisher Stevens and Richard Edson both provide some amusement as a couple of idiotic goons, and Fiona Shaw is just as good as she always is in the role of Lena, the woman by the side of Koopa who also has plans of her own.

Perhaps it's because this was the first major theatrically released movie based on a videogame, but it's hard to think of what writers Parker Bennett, Terry Runte and Ed Solomon were thinking when they cobbled this script together. Yes, there are videogame elements incorporated into the movie, but they're not prominent enough and at no time does this film actually feel like Super Mario Bros. It may have been difficult, admittedly, but the groundwork for more creativity was easily laid out when the premise involved throwing the characters into another dimension.

Directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel don't help. Super Mario Bros. may well be one of the drabbest, ugliest "big" movies to ever see the inside of cinemas. The design, the colour scheme, even the shot choices, almost every decision just feels wrong. It's all so wrong that it's hard to believe that Morton and Jankel weren't on some kind of mission to sabotage their own movie.

But that cast, thank goodness for that cast. There IS fun to be had here. Yes, you have to sit through a lot of rubbish to get to the good bits, but I disagree with anyone saying that this movie is entirely worthless. It's bad, no arguing with that, but it's not unwatchable. If only I'd been writing this blog back in 1993 perhaps I could have allowed them to quote me on the posters: "Bad, but not unwatchable".

4/10

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

The boys are back, and this time they're going to Hell. The original title of this film was, in fact, originally going to be "Bill & Ted Go To Hell" but, apparently, many Americans are put off by anything that uses the word Hell so that was changed. Thankfully, most of what made the first film so enjoyable was kept the same.

Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves reprise their main roles as, respectively, Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan. This time the future is jeopardised by the wicked De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), a man who has had enough of people being excellent to each other and enjoying rock 'n' roll music. He decides to crash the party in spectacular fashion, by using the time-travelling phonebox to send back evil robot versions of the boys, killing the real pair and then ruining their lives and musical career. It's a cunning plan, and one that looks as if it will work when Bill and Ted are killed off pretty quickly. But death doesn't have to be the end.

It may be a new director at the helm in the shape of Peter Hewitt, but writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (whose name is reversed for the name of the villain) are back and clearly out to do their best for two characters embraced so readily by audiences the first time around.

Winter and Reeves slip back into their roles as easily as any of their casual clothing. They have some fun playing the bad robots, but always seem more at ease being the optimistic, naive, good guys. Rufus (played by George Carlin) returns, as do the princesses from the first film, although they are now played by Annette Azcuy and Sarah Trigger and they have slightly more screentime. Great support comes from Amy Stock-Poynton, Chelcie Ross, Pam Grier and many others (including Hal Landon Jr. and Roy Brocksmith, two men who at one point have to bravely attempt to act as if their bodies have been inhabited by the spirits of our leading dudes). But the highlight of the movie is William Sadler, hilariously deadpan - no pun intended - in the role of the Grim Reaper. The film moves along nicely before he appears, but as soon as his character starts to interact with Bill and Ted the whole thing is lifted slightly, putting it on a par with the first film.

People expecting more time travel shenanigans may be slightly disappointed, but the main premise IS based on altering timelines and the finale has some fun with the familiar phonebox. There are lots of great characters, all of them in the shadow of the Grim Reaper (suitably enough, I suppose), and a rousing rock song or two on the soundtrack, including the mighty God Gave Rock 'N' Roll To You. If you enjoyed the first movie then you'll enjoy this movie.

Station!

8/10

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bill-Teds-Bogus-Journey-DVD/dp/B00005KIVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370204606&sr=8-1&keywords=bill+and+ted%27s+bogus+journey

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

You may wonder just what could appeal to anyone above the age of 15 in a movie about two dim-witted metalheads who need to travel through time in a telephone box to improve their chances of presenting a very important history report. It's a fair query, but it's also one that has a fair answer.

There's no denying that Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is mainly a teen film, but the main characters are so naive and sweet that nothing about the movie really feels as if it's a film JUST showing how cool young things go through their daily lives. It's a film, like many others, about believing in yourself. It's a film about friendship. And it's a film about being excellent to each other. Which, let's face it, isn't the worst message for a teen film to contain.

Alex Winter is Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Keanu Reeves is Ted Theodore Logan. The two young men don't know it, but they will be a pretty big deal in the future. However, that will only happen if they pass that important history assignment, a moment in their lives that is so crucial that a man named Rufus (George Carlin) is sent back in a time-travelling telephone box to hand it over to them and give them the best chance of making everything right for a future generation. Bill and Ted decide that the best thing they can do is actually pick up a few historical figures in order to impress their teacher (Bernie Casey), and to also maybe fall for a couple of princesses (played by the lovely Diane Franklin and Kimberley LaBelle).

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure benefits from a surprisingly witty script from Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon (it may be daft, but it's far from all daft and the time-travel trickery is enjoyably realised), good direction from Stephen Herek that makes the most of the material and resources available and, perhaps most of all, spirited performances from the leads and everyone else involved. Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, Rod Loomis, Al Leong, Robert V. Barron, Clifford David and Jane Wiedlin (as in Jane "Rush Hour" Wiedlin) have fun as they pretend to be, respectively, Napoleon, Billy The Kid, Socrates, Sigmund Freud, Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig van Beethoven and Joan Of Arc. Carlin is great as Rufus and Amy Stock-Poynton provides some amusement as the young lady who was once at school with Bill and Ted, but is now Bill's stepmother.

Maybe I am desperately trying to cling on to my last shred of youthful spirit so my opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt, but I think this movie still works well with anyone who still has an urge to turn up the volume when a favourite rock song comes on. The fact that it encourages a responsible mix of partying and learning, because learning is shown here as a GOOD thing, probably upsets as many people as it pleases. Which I just view as another aspect of the film that is most excellent.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bill-Teds-Excellent-Adventure-DVD/dp/B001D07Q8K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370200449&sr=8-1&keywords=bill+and+ted