INFINITY

Anton van Beek, Denis Meikle and Steve Kirkham take a look at some of the latest sci-fi and fantasy movie and home video releases, including Pixar’s soulful new animated entry and another X-Men blockbuster…

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC (2020) Blu-ray. Out now. Warner Bros. Cert: 12

★★★★

Back in 1991 it seemed like Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan (Keanu Reeves) had finally fulfilled the prophesy claiming that their music would inspire the creation of a future utopian society. In 2020, it’s all looking a little more shaky. Not only did Wyld Stallyns disband (Death insisted on playing 40 minute bass solos), but Bill and Ted have spent so much time trying unsuccessfully to create the song that will unite the world that their marriages are falling apart. Worse still, something’s up with the time-stream, with people from throughout history suddenly appearing in the present.

Which is when Rufus’s daughter Kelly (Kristen Schaal) whisks the duo off to the future, where they learn they only have until 7.17pm that night to write and perform the song in order to prevent reality collapsing in on itself. Struggling to come up with an idea for the song, Bill and Ted hit on the idea of stealing a time machine and travelling into the future to steal the song off their future selves after they’ve written it. Meanwhile, their daughters Theodora ‘Thea’ Preston (Samara Weaving) and Wilhelmina ‘Billie’ Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine) decide to help their dads by taking their own trip back in time to round up the greatest musicians in history to play with them. Oh yeah, there’s also a time-travelling killer android on the loose, too.

All of which is to say that there is a surprising amount of plot in this third Bill and Ted comedy, more than is actually necessary. Especially when the entire project seems guided by nostalgia rather than any genuine need to continue the story. But for all this, Bill & Ted Face the Music is still a fun way to fill an hour-and-a-half. It’s surprisingly entertaining to watch Reeves and Winter reprising the roles of Bill and Ted - and offering up new takes on them with their douche-bag future selves - in a film that has no greater goal than tickling your funny bone and reminding us all about the importance of friendship and believing in one another. Sweet, silly and completely lacking in cynicism Bill & Ted Face the Music may not be a great film by any measure, but it’s precisely the sort of thing we need to distract from how horrible everything is right now here in the real world.

So party on and be excellent to each other, dudes!

Extras: The Official Bill & Ted Face the Music Panel at Comic-Con@Home (43 minutes) is a Zoom-style virtual Q&A session with actors Keanu Reeves, Alex Winters, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, and William Sadler, writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, and director Dean Parisot, moderated by Kevin Smith. Due to the format it does lack some of the immediacy and spontaneous interaction of a proper group Q&A, but there are also plenty of interesting behind-thescenes tidbits.

Be Excellent to Each Other (one minute), A Most Triumphant Duo (one minute) and Social Piece (Excellence) (one minute) see the cast and crew briefly discuss the shoot, the characters and the franchise’s optimistic outlook. Finally, Death’s Crib (one minute) offers a quick tour of the Grim Reaper’s Hellish home.

AvB

STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN - Season Two (2020) Disney+. Out now. Disney. Cert: 14+

★★★★★

With cinemas closed and the majority of tent-pole movies pushed back by a year or more, most of 2020’s biggest blockbusters could instead be found on streaming platforms - and they didn’t come any bigger than Disney+’s liveaction Star Wars series. While recent movies in the franchise have proved something of a disappointment, The Mandalorian’s first season came far closer to recapturing the feel of the original trilogy, thrilling fans with high-octane action and gripping stories as it toured the Wild West of the Star Wars universe and introduced a new pop culture icon in the utterly adorable ‘Baby Yoda/‘ (aka ‘The Child’). Incredibly, this second eight-episode season - following bounty hunter Din Djardin’s (Pedro Pascal) quest to return ‘The Child’ to the Jedi - is even better.

Largely eschewing the fully serialised format favoured by so much modern genre television, The Mandalorian continues to hark back to an earlier era of small-screen drama with episodic variations on a basic formula (Mando turns up somewhere new looking for information, only to end up helping the locals fight monsters/warlords/leftover Stormtroopers). While some may be frustrated by the lack of focus on the main storyline, it allows the show to continue exploring new corners of the Star Wars universe and always served to add further layers of character development to the show’s two leads. It’s through these stories that Din’s worldview is continually challenged, deepening the bond he shares with ‘The Child’ - and full credit to actor Pedro Pascal for bringing so much humanity and empathy to a character who face is rarely ever seen.