Movie review: "Bill & Ted Face the Music"

( Graphic / Dior Brown )Sam Stroud “Bill and Ted Face the Music” is the third film in the series, which now creates a trilogy, joiningBill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey,” All three films star Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter – the two titular characters, Bill and Ted. Immediate disclaimer, if you have not seen the previous Bill and Ted flicks, it is a must in order to understand what is happening in this third film of the series. If you go into this movie blind, none of it will make any sense. I promise you this. For those of us who have seen the first film at least, if not both the previous two, the question must be asked, is this third installment worth watching? The answer is a yes, but with a major caveat. On a purely analytical level, in terms of plot construction and strength of the story, “Face the Music”is an incredibly weak movie. The slightest examination of the story this movie is trying to tell will completely dismantle it. The plot is the world’s most fragile house of cards, where any scrutiny will cause a collapse. Nearly nothing in this movie makes sense if you stop and think about it for two seconds. But the beauty of this movie is that it does not give you those two seconds. With a run time of just over an hour and a half, the movie does not allow viewers a moment to catch their breath. The barrage of jokes never lets up, and in a movie as goofy as this, it can be to its detriment if the jokes do not land. Thankfully, nearly all of them do, and in fact, there were several laugh out loud moments for me when I watched it. This movie is competently written in the sense that it is designed to entertain you with some disposable comedy. It does just that. If you want a serious story or want your movies to have well crafted plots, this movie is not for you. If you want to take your mind off our pandemic-dominated, political volatile lives for an hour and a half and just smile and laugh, this may be the movie for you.