Why I hope Bill & Ted 3 is excellent

Yes, this is the nostalgia talking, but Bill & Ted Face the Music has real potential.

Nostalgia is a funny thing.  There can be a person or a movie you haven’t thought about in a long time. But when you bump into them by accident or hear that they’re doing a sequel/reboot  suddenly a reservoir of emotion you’d taken for granted breaches, and powerful memories and feelings come over you.

That’s how I’ve felt with the announcement that William Sadler is returning to play Death in Bill & Ted: Face the Music. Firstly, with the announcement that Bill & Ted 3 is actually going to be a real thing.

Secondly, that William Sadler will once again be playing such a delightfully silly version of the Grim Reaper. Thirdly, that both Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves are going to be playing Bill and Ted again.

Slow down a bit. Who are Bill and Ted?

Bill and Ted were the main characters of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. They were California slackers who wanted to create a great heavy metal band in spite of not having decent instruments or even knowing how to play.

In the movie, their band brings universal peace and harmony to the future. That is, if they can pass their high school history report. So the people of the future send back George Carlin in a time traveling phone booth and adventures follow.

Like many 80’s movies, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure wasn’t meant to start a cinematic universe. It was supposed to be an entertaining comedy with a big idea hook. Back to the Future had just come out four years ago. Hollywood was eager to find a similar mixture of silliness and surprisingly clever observations of how western society had changed.

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Bill &Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a lot of fun. It’s not as precisely crafted as Back, but it has an endearing level of enthusiasm and personality. Both Winter and Reeves are pitch perfect as dim witted but well-meaning metal heads. (This is my third favourite Keanu Reeves role, next to Neo and John Wick). The script is both thoughtful and well constructed (cowritten by future Men in Black screenwriter Ed Solomon). Also, Adventure has it’s own vibe by leapfrogging throughout history, and playing out a what if famous historical figures were introduced to modern society.

It is also a very watchable cult movie. Even after seeing it more than 15 watches, the jokes still land for me. It’s one of my go to films when I need a pick me up. It made enough money that it accidentally became a small franchise.

Was the rest any good?

First, there was a short-lived cartoon. It entertained me as a kid, but it was short lived, and I’ve never had the urge to re watch it.

More memorable was the live-action sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. The villain hates the Utopia that Bill & Ted created, so he sends evil robot versions of Bill and Ted to kill them. The crazy thing is that the evil robots actually kill the real versions a third of the way through the movie.

The rest of the movie takes Bill & Ted through a goofy take on Dante’s divine comedy to come back to life and save the world. On one hand, it’s just not as good Adventure. On the other hand it’s version of Death is a delight, and Journey is a sequel that doesn’t just try to be part one, again.

It didn’t make as much money as the first one, so for 28 years the franchise was allowed to sit dormant. Bogus!

Why I have hope for Bill & Ted Face the Music

For one thing, a lot of time has passed. So it’s allowed scriptwriters Chris Matheson and Solomon a lot of time to have fresh ideas for where to take them. Also, as Keanu Reeves revealed on the Graham Norton show, they plan to use the passage of time as part of the story.  Basically, Bill & Ted haven’t yet written the songs that should have saved the world. So now, time itself is falling apart, and these guys have to get it together to save the Universe.

The idea of Bill & Ted a little older, a little sadder, still trying to achieve the destiny that they were told was theirs back in 1989 is a premise with a lot of potential. You can build a good movie around that. Keanu Reeves is still a game actor who hasn’t used his underrated comedy chops much recently.

As much as I love films like Logan, the Bill and Ted movies represent something that the modern movie landscape could use more. Non-animated movies that deal with big ideas like time travel with humour and hope.  At their core, the Bill & Ted movies are about dopey people but well-meaning people who want to make the world a better place.

Spiderman: Homecoming is about to become the 23rd Marvel movie in 11 years. We’re about to have a sixth Terminator movie. I feel there’s room for Bill & Ted Face the Music as well. Excellent!