Not Bogus, But Not Righteous: Bill and Ted Face the Music

Thirty-one years ago, two righteous California teens with guitars and a dream had an excellent adventure in a time-traveling phone booth. It was so much fun, they had to do it again, but it ended up being a totally heinous bogus journey.

Along the way, Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves) learned they had a destiny. Their band, Wild Stallynz, would create a song that would unite the world. But decades later, the band has fallen apart, but the boys still have the dream, even if they have fallen to playing wedding receptions. Their music skills are actually incredibly well-rounded, in every technique. But what they produce is the result of obviously trying too hard, seeking that special combination that will finally unite the world.

And along the way, they got married to princesses pulled from medieval times and had daughters -- Thea Preston (Sarama Weaving) and Billie Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who are almost entirely like their totally awesome, developmentally arrested fathers.

And now, with BILL AND TED FACE THE MUSIC, the future has come calling once again. Because the moment of the song is coming that night -- and it doesn't just unite the world, it saves all time and reality from collapsing upon itself, ending everything. Desperate to create the song, Bill and Ted have the ingenious plan to travel to their future and steal the song from themselves, after they've already written it. What they find are bitter versions of themselves, filled with self-loathing and recriminations, because their quest cost them their wives and lives. Along the way they're being chased by an inept robot assassin -- sent after them because a new interpretation of the facts leads some of the future beings to believe that Bill and Ted actually cause the event that ends everything.

And while the boys try to get the right song, their daughters catch another time-machine to go to different eras of the past, with the idea that what their dads really need is an awesome band; so why not get the best person ever in time for the roles, going so far as to get a caveman drummer. And their wives, somehow, come back from the future to find a reality in which they can be happy. So the Logans and the Prestons are all mucking about in time...

...and yet, it's missing the magic of the first two parts. Some movies, some adventures, aren't meant to be seen through to their inevitable conclusions. We didn't have to actually see Bill and Ted come up with the song (spoiler alert: they don't), we just had to leave BOGUS JOURNEY knowing that it was where they were going to eventually go. We don't need to know about Zion or the continuing fight against the machines after Neo learns how to control The Matrix.

Bill Sadler reprises his role as The Grim Reaper, as do Amy Stoch and Hal Landon Jr. as Missy and Ted's father, Chief Logan. It's an admirable effort, bringing the original players back together, (sans the late great George Carlin), but it's a story that, ultimately, didn't need telling. Sometimes, the best possible future is the one we create in our heads.