Here's some news that will please Wyld Stallyns fans. The first reviews for Bill & Ted Face the Music are in, and they are, mostly, excellent. Air guitar of triumph, please.
After nearly 30 years, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are reunited as the doofus rockers. Only this time, Bill and Ted are older with grown-up daughters (Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine). Before long, an inter-generational plan to save the world gets underway, as the race to assemble the world's greatest rock song is on.
Here's just a sampling of the critical response.
Owen Gleiberman, Variety: "The film is weightless and super-goofy — a blissed-out air balloon of nostalgia. It zips right along, it makes you smile and chortle, it’s a surprisingly sweet-spirited love story (about Bill and Ted trying to live up to their marriages — though the real love story is, of course, the one that takes place between the two of them), and it’s a better tribute to the one-world utopian power of classic rock than “Yesterday” was. On a scale of one to 10, I wouldn’t say that “Face the Music” goes to 11, but it’s a most excellent sequel."
Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: "Mostly, the joy comes from watching Reeves and Winter on screen, two holy fools just doing their best to bring light and love and non-heinous riffs — and remind the bleary-eyed citizens of 2020, perhaps, of a simpler, sweeter world gone by."
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "After, whoa, 30 years, Reeves and Winter return as the SoCal rockers for one more bodacious go at saving the world. So what if the movie is all over the place, this labor of fan-service love makes a most excellent cure for the heinous pandemic blues."
Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com: "The very good cinematic news in a week when everyone could use a smile is that “Bill & Ted Face the Music” is essentially all it needed to be. It’s a long-awaited sequel that doesn’t betray its beloved characters, and it doesn’t merely repeat what people loved about them in the first place. Most of all, it is a remarkably likable comedy about two good guys still trying to find their place in the world that’s anchored by genuinely sweet beliefs about the importance of friendship, honesty, and, most of all, music. Be excellent to each other, dudes. It still matters."
Stephanie Zachareck, TIME Magazine: "Bill & Ted Face the Music is the feel-good movie of this infinite time loop, and the next. And although it’s pure fantasy, it also represents a leap of faith we all have to be willing to take. Even without time-travel phone booths, people have the power."
Click here to book your tickets for Bill & Ted Face the Music, released in the UK and Ireland on 28th September. Planning to watch it and rock out? Tweet us @Cineworld. And party on dudes!