NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

Movie review: Bill and Ted Face the Music

Greg Bruce
By Greg Bruce, Greg Bruce and Zanna Gillespie
Senior multimedia journalist·Canvas·
11 Sep, 2020 06:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Bill and Ted Face the Music. Photo / Supplied

Bill and Ted Face the Music. Photo / Supplied

Argumentative married couple Greg Bruce and Zanna Gillespie review Bill and Ted Face the Music

SCORES

Genuine laughs: 0
Sympathy laughs: 0
Intermarital laughs: 0

SHE SAW

Greg has a blanket zero tolerance policy for sequels, franchises, adaptations, basically any film concept that is derived from anything other than spontaneous creative inspiration. I've spent an inordinate amount of time arguing that there's nothing inherently wrong with sequels, that if an interesting world and/or complex thought-provoking characters have been created, there's no reason more than one engaging story can't be told. Unfortunately Bill and Ted Face the Music has not aided my argument.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

I can't really figure out who this movie is for. The original films are aimed at teens but what teen wants to watch two men their dad's age bounce around idiotically, using a parlance that ceased being funny before they were born? So then it's a nostalgia film but who in their 50s finds an ageing stoner knucklehead entertaining? That's just sad.

There are a couple of attempts to remedy this problem. One is introducing Bill and Ted's daughters as the young "heroes" of the film but there's an issue with that - they're not very funny. Their characters are replicas of their dads but in female form. They don't actually have their own characters. At best, that's lazy scriptwriting.

Which leads me to another gripe: the wives. Actors Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are mid-50s, as are the women who played their wives in the original films. But the actresses cast as their wives this time round are 40 and 43. Apparently in Hollywood, as Amy Schumer brilliantly pointed out, women over 45 are officially unf***able and can no longer play love interests. Wonderful.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

At the heart of the film is a lame message about unity - an antidote to Trump's politics of division. That's sweet but the movie is so lacking in any character development or exploration of interpersonal relationships, the message barely lands. For something to be actually funny, it has to be rooted in human truth. This film is set up perfectly to do just that: Bill and Ted's marriages are failing, they've spent the last 25 years consumed by the prophecy they will write a song to save humanity and perhaps their 24-year-old daughters might have something to say about that. But nothing comes of any of it. I could put aside the thinness of the premise if the film was LOL-worthy but sadly there are only a handful of real laughs.

When Greg and I enter into another inevitable debate over whether or not he would enjoy Greta Gerwig's remake of Little Women, I'm pretty sure he'll be using this film to bolster his argument that sequels are sewage.

Discover more

Lifestyle

One marriage two movie reviews: Trolls World Tour

03 Jul 07:00 PM
Lifestyle

One marriage, two movie reviews: Shirley

24 Jul 07:00 PM
Entertainment

One marriage, two movie reviews: Britt-Marie Was Here

31 Jul 07:00 PM
Entertainment

One marriage, two movie reviews: The Australian Dream

04 Sep 07:00 PM

HE SAW

Earlier this year, our marriage was riven by an astonishingly intense argument over the Greta Gerwig remake of Little Women. Zanna had gone to watch it with friends. Upon her return, I eviscerated it. That drove her crazy because I hadn't seen it and she felt my opinion was therefore invalid.

"No matter how 'good' the movie," I told her, "it's a remake of a remake of a remake of a book and can therefore never be anything but derivative." I said I was so offended by Hollywood's endless cynical recycling of previously successful product that I would never again pay to watch a movie that is a remake, a sequel or otherwise derivative.

On the way home from the limp but not unexpected disappointment of the third instalment of the Bill and Ted franchise, for which we got free tickets, I asked Zanna if she thought seeing movies on the big screen made a difference. I can't remember her answer but she followed up by saying she would have liked to have seen the movie Parasite on the big screen. To that, I said: "Would you like to have seen a parasite on the big screen? Just like a mosquito flying past the screen, backlit?"

That was funny - and I knew it was funny - but she didn't laugh, didn't smile, didn't even make a noise. I went on: "What about something bigger than a mosquito? What about a bat?" Again nothing. I began fumbling for somewhere to go with this.
She said: "There's nowhere to go with this." She added: "Just stop it."
I said: "That's pretty harsh."
She said: "Well sometimes you go down these humour rabbit holes and there's nowhere for me to go."
I said, "You could go with me."
She said: "Yeah, but it's not that easy."
I said: "You could decide to say something back. You could decide to laugh."
She said: "Is laughing something you decide to do?"
I said: "Yes, you can give somebody a little chuckle. That's something you do if you like somebody. I give you sympathy laughs all the time."
She said "Well, that's pretty harsh. That's one of the harshest things you've ever said to me."

That was wrong though. Sympathy laughter is anchored in affection, which is a feeling I had long had for Bill and Ted. While watching their most recent movie, however, the best I could offer them was silence.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Bill and Ted Face the Music is in cinemas now.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

My weight ballooned after I gave up drinking - here’s how I finally quit both addictions

09 Jul 06:00 AM
Travel

What happens to passengers who are refused entry to New Zealand

Lifestyle

The secret sauce of the bar named NZ's best

08 Jul 10:00 PM

Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
My weight ballooned after I gave up drinking - here’s how I finally quit both addictions

My weight ballooned after I gave up drinking - here’s how I finally quit both addictions

09 Jul 06:00 AM

Telegraph: Battling sugar cravings after giving booze the boot.

What happens to passengers who are refused entry to New Zealand

What happens to passengers who are refused entry to New Zealand

The secret sauce of the bar named NZ's best

The secret sauce of the bar named NZ's best

08 Jul 10:00 PM
King Charles hosts state visit with burst blood vessel in eye

King Charles hosts state visit with burst blood vessel in eye

08 Jul 08:59 PM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP