BALLERINA : Tuesday 10th June 2025

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'BALLERINA' earlier this week, and this American action thriller film is the fifth film in the 'John Wick' franchise, and serves as a spin-off instalment that is Directed by Len Wiseman, whose prior feature film making credits are 'Underworld' in 2003, 'Underworld : Evolution' in 2006, 'Live Free or Die Hard' in 2007 and 'Total Recall' in 2012, as well as Producing 'Underworld : Rise of the Lycans' in 2009, 'Underworld : Awakening' in 2012, and 'Underworld : Blood Wars' in 2016. This film is also Co-Produced by Chad Stahelski who Directed the first four 'John Wick' films. The film was released here in Australia and the US last week, having so far grossed US$57M from a production budget of US$90M and has generated largely positive critical reviews. Allegedly as far back as March 2023 the studio announced it has plans to develop a sequel with de Armas returning to her role. 

The film opens with a young Eve Macarro (Victoria Comte) playing at ballet dancing with her father Javier (David Castaneda) in their lavish seaside villa. Javier is/was an assassin, a Kikimora for the Ruska Roma, and when Eve was younger he went on the run with his daughter to escape a Cult his wife was heavily involved with, which ultimately led to her death. The Cult's Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) wants to retrieve Eve, and so undercover of darkness the Cult lays siege to their residence, killing the guards and fatally wounding Javier, who helps Eve escape. New York Continental Hotel owner Winston Scott (Ian McShane) brings Eve to the Ruska Roma, where Eve meets their Director (Anjelica Huston) and agrees to join them.

Over the course of the ensuing twelve years Eve (Ana de Armas) trains as a ballerina and a Kikimora assassin/bodyguard under the Director and her mentor Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). Eve graduates as a Kikimora after killing a fellow Kikimora, as a final test to truly assess that she has what it takes. After completing a contract some two months later, Eve is attacked by an assassin, whom she kills and identifies as a Cultist from a scar of a cross burned onto his wrist. She asks the Director about the Cult, wanting revenge. The Director forbids Eve from chasing down the Cult due to a centuries old truce between the Cult and the Ruska Roma.

Eve disobeys the Director and visits the New York Continental, where Charon, the Hotel Concierge (Lance Reddick, in his final screen appearance following his death in March 2023, aged 60) grants her a meeting with Winston. Winston reveals that one Cultist, Daniel Pine (Norman Reedus), is staying at the Prague Continental with a US$2M bounty on him, so Eve travels there and books a room directly next to his. Several Cultists are also there, led by Lena (Catalina Sandino Moreno), waiting for the bounty's fulfilment. 

Eve infiltrates Pine's room, discovering his young daughter Ella (Ava McCarthy), whom Pine reveals is hiding from the Cult, having escaped from them. When the Cult sees that Eve has not killed Pine, Lena increases the bounty to US$4M. The Cultists and other mercenaries attack Pine on Continental grounds. Eve assists him and he entrusts Ella to her. Cultist Dex (Robert Maaser) shoots Pine, while Lena incapacitates Eve and takes Ella. The Prague Continental staff spare Eve for not breaking Continental rules but execute two captured Cultists/mercenaries for their attack.

While in Prague Eve goes to purchase a stash of weapons from arms dealer Frank (Abraham Popoola), but the Cult henchmen attack his shop. After Eve kills every last one of the Cult's heavies, Frank helps her narrow down the location of the Cult's base and provides her with a car so that she can drive herself to their location. 

Eve's search leads to the town of Hallstatt in Upper Austria, where she quickly comes under attack as all the townspeople are of the Cult and many are assassins, some of whom the Cult has offered safe haven to. Eve is eventually captured and brought to the Chancellor, who discovers her ties to the Ruska Roma. Eve reveals her revenge plot, while he reveals that Pine is his son and Ella his granddaughter. The Chancellor remembers Eve, informing Lena that she is Eve's older sister, whom Eve believed to be dead. Eve breaks free before being cornered by Lena, who reveals their kinship. Lena tells Eve that Javier abandoned her during his escape due to fearing that the Cult had already indoctrinated Lena. Hearing of Eve and Lena talking, the Chancellor orders their deaths. The Cult's attack kills Lena while Eve escapes.

The Chancellor calls the Director with a declaration of war between their factions due to Eve's relentless actions, despite the Director repeatedly stating that Eve had gone rogue. To satisfy the Chancellor, the Director sends John Wick (Keanu Reeves) to take out Eve as a compromise, which the Chancellor accepts. 

The Chancellor orders a temporary stand-down of the townsfolk once John arrives at Hallstatt, where he finds and defeats Eve, repeatedly sparing her and imploring her to leave Hallstatt. Eve pleads for her revenge, so the sympathetic John gives her the remaining twenty-eight minutes until midnight, when the stand-down orders end, to kill the Chancellor. If she fails to kill the Chancellor by then, he will have no choice but to see out his contract to its foregone conclusion.

Eve continues fighting against the Cult across Hallstatt, with John killing Dex to save Eve. Some Cultists attack John, who in turn kills them. When the Cult loses track of John, the Chancellor attempts to flee with Ella in a SUV, but Eve shoots the driver causing the vehicle to come to an abrupt halt, and corners the Chancellor. The Chancellor exits the car and attempts to reason with Eve, but Eve executes him where he stands, and rescues Ella. John calls the Director who asks if 'she' is dead, but John simply responds by stating that 'he' is dead.

Ella is reunited with an alive and recovering Pine at the New York Continental where Eve takes refuge. Now exiled from the Ruska Roma, Eve watches former Kikimora trainee and friend Tatiana's (Juliet Doherty) Swan Lake ballet performance. The Cult places a US$5M bounty on Eve, and being alerted to this development on her mobile phone, as were several other members of the audience, she quickly exits the theatre.

'Ballerina' has all the trademarks of the four previous 'John Wick' instalments, which I guess is down largely to the involvement of Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves, from the bullet ballet choreography, the intense close quarter fight scenes, the creative kills, and a strong cast who really give it their all. Director Len Wiseman has done a very respectable job of steering this franchise in a relatively new direction whilst maintaining the many touchstones, characters, top notch cinematography, relentless pace and everything we have come to expect from the series so far. Ana de Armas gives a solid performance as the Ballerina in question here, and seems to slip easily enough into the role as the gun totting, arse kicking, flame thrower wielding, ice skate launching, grenade lobbing assassin Eve Macarro, and it's good to see Keanu Reeves reprise his role as John Wick even if only for a couple of scenes in the last fifteen minutes or so. 

'Ballerina' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

JOHN WICK : CHAPTER 4 - Tuesday 28th March 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'JOHN WICK : CHAPTER 4' this week, and here we have the continuing saga in the 'John Wick' franchise that is once again Directed and Co-Produced by Chad Stahelski following his earlier successes with the 2014 debut in the series 'John Wick', then 2017's 'John Wick : Chapter 2' and 2019's 'John Wick : Chapter 3 - Parabellum'. Those first three films grossed globally a total US$587M off the back of combined production budgets of US$145M. Originally set for worldwide cinematic release on 21st May 2021, 'John Wick 4' was delayed first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then Keanu Reeves's commitments with 2021's 'The Matrix Resurrections'. This film saw its World Premier in London on 6th March and was released worldwide from last week, having garnered positive critical reviews and grossed so far US$153M off the back of a US$100M production budget. 

The film opens up with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) returning to his underground hideaway where John Wick (Keanu Reeves who also Executive Produces here) has been recovering after being shot by Winston (Ian McShane) at the end of the last film, and is in training to get back into shape so that he is best prepared to exact his revenge on the High Table. We next see John riding horseback across the desert sands of Morocco chasing after three horsemen, whom he eventually guns down, before meeting with the Elder, who sits above the High Table, and whom he also shoots dead. 

Responding to this development, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), a senior member of the High Table, summons the New York Continental Hotel Manager Winston and his concierge, Charon (Lance Reddick) to his very plush offices overlooking the city skyline and down across to the Continental. De Gramont explains to Winston that the High Table has given him unlimited resources to find and kill John Wick. He berates Winston for his failure to assassinate John when he had the chance to do so. As a consequence, De Gramont strips Winston of his duties as Manager, declares him as 'excommunicado', destroys the Continental, and shoots Charon in the chest, killing him. We next see De Gramont in Paris where he enlists Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind, retired High Table assassin, to kill his old friend John, threatening to murder his daughter if he declines, or fails to do so.

John takes refuge at the Osaka Continental Hotel, run by his long term friend Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada). De Gramont's right-hand man Chidi (Marko Zaror), supported by many High Table assassins and Caine, arrive to investigate the hotel, looking for John. Koji's daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama), the hotel's concierge, evacuates the hotel just before Chidi announces that the High Table have 'deconsecrated' it, resulting in a battle royale between Chidi's men, Koji's men, John and Akira. 

John fights through waves of armoured assassins, and a showdown with Caine is interrupted by a bounty hunter who calls himself 'Mr. Nobody' (Shamier Anderson). He helps John's escape after determining the contract money for killing him falls short of his expectations. Caine allows a wounded Akira to flee after killing her father, but upon leaving she swears to exact her revenge on Caine, to which he responds with 'I'll be waiting'. 

John returns to a snow covered New York and meets with Winston at Charon's gravesite. Winston advises John to invoke an old High Table tradition and challenge De Gramont to a duel. Winning will free him of all obligations to the High Table. The over rider is that John can only request a duel on behalf of a crime family. And so John travels to the Berlin headquarters of Ruska Roma, with whom he had severed all ties, to request readmission. His adoptive sister Katia (Natalia Tena) allows John to rejoin in exchange for dispensing with Killa (Scott Adkins), a High Table senior who murdered her father. Although Killa sets up an ambush at his nightclub with both Caine and Nobody there too, John still manages to kill him, but not before taking a beating himself, and wins back his status within Ruska Roma.

Winston takes John's formal challenge to De Gramont, who is initially dismissive of the notion but then reluctantly accepts when he realises he has no choice. As part of the deal he asks that the New York Continental be rebuilt funded in totality by the High Table, with him being reinstated as Manager, should John win, to which De Gramont reluctantly agrees.

In Paris, John and De Gramont decide the parameters of their duel in a meeting moderated by the Harbinger (Clancy Brown), the Table's emissary. De Gramont nominates Caine to fight in his place. The duel is to take place with duelling pistols on the following sunrise just after 6:00am at Sacre-Coeur, with John and Winston being executed should either fail to appear on time. 

The Bowery King arrives in Paris and meets with Winston and John to give John a weapon and a new ballistic three piece suit.

De Gramont hatches a plan to prevent John from arriving at the duel in time by placing a US$26M bounty on his head, which leads to a frenetic sequence around the Arc de Triomphe with John fighting off hordes of assassins on his way to Sacre-Coeur, including Nobody, who negotiates a bounty increase to US$40M with De Gramont when it looks as though his plan is failing. During their confrontation, John prevents Chidi from killing Nobody's dog, and so a stunned Nobody decides to abandon his pursuit of John, and subsequently kills Chidi on the steps leading up to the Sacre-Coeur. 

After Caine and Nobody assist John in the 220 steps that leads to Sacre-Coeur by taking out another horde of assassins and De Gramont's henchmen, they reach the summit just in time for the duel. Caine takes his place opposite John for the duel, while Nobody watches on from the sidelines with his trusted dog by his side. Each inflicts serious wounds on the other through two rounds of duelling, first at a distance of thirty paces then twenty paces. The third round at a distance of just ten paces, comes to a halt when Caine mortally wounds John with a shot to the gut. Demanding the right to administer the coup de grace, De Gramont immediately steps up and swaps places with Caine. However, as Gramont stands over John pointing the loaded pistol at him, Winston perks up with 'you idiot, he didn't fire his third bullet', with which John shoots and kills an unsuspecting De Gramont with his single pistol bullet cleanly in his forehead. 

The Harbinger grants Caine and John their freedoms from all obligations to the High Table, Winston is reinstated as the Continental Hotel Manager and the hotel will be rebuilt at the High Table's expense. John stands, and turns to Winston and asks that he takes him home. After collapsing on the staircase, John has a vision of his life and marriage before peacefully succumbing to his wounds. Later, back in New York, Winston and the Bowery King say their farewells to John at a gravesite where he is buried next to his late wife, Helen, with the tombstone reading John Wick, Loving Husband, next to his wife's which reads Helen Wick, Loving Wife. 

'John Wick : Chapter 4' certainly ups the ante on the action set pieces, the majestically choreographed fight sequences, the bullet ballet and the trademark gun fu that our titular action hero is renowned for. The body count, which must stretch well into the couple of hundred here all at the hands of one single man, is relentless and I have to say repetitive, with my mind wandering towards the end and thinking when will all this wrap up? And despite John getting thrown off high balconies, crashing through a second storey window and landing on a car roof below, getting hit by various cars and hurled against others and being thrown down 220 steps to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom, he seems to get up, dust himself down, and carry on with killing the bad guys with nary a scratch to show for it - like he's Superman - and maybe he is, until he's not! Including the credits (which you have to sit through if you want to catch the end credits scene) this film borders on three hours, which is easily thirty minutes longer than it needed to be, but that said it never leaves you wanting as it lurches from one action sequence to the next, to the next and so on right up to the satisfactory conclusion that for now at least, seems to put a lid on this franchise that has redefined the action genre and set the standard by which all other films of the ilk will be judged. 

'John Wick : Chapter 4' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS : Tuesday 28th December 2021.

'THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS' which I saw earlier this week is an M Rated American Sci-Fi actioner Directed, Co-Written, Co-Produced by Lana Wachowski and based on characters created by both Lana and Lilly Wachowski, who between them both Wrote and Directed the three previous instalments in this hugely popular film franchise back in 1999 with 'The Matrix', then its first two sequels 'The Matrix Reloaded' and 'The Matrix Revolutions' both released in 2003. Those first three films grossed at the global Box Office US$1.63B off the back of a combined production budget of US$363M, but at the time the Wachowski's were adamant that the franchise ended with 'Revolutions' with the Writers/Directors going on to helm other film and TV projects together. However, in late 2019 a fourth film in the franchise was announced with Lana Wachowski returning to Direct but this time without her sister. This film saw its World Premier showcasing in Toronto, Canada on 16th of this month and was released in Russia on the same day, before its worldwide release this week. Early indications are that the film has garnered generally positive Reviews and has so far grossed US$69M from its production budget of US$190M. 

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a successful video game developer and the creator of The Matrix video game trilogy based on faint albeit recurring memories of Neo. At a local coffee shop, Anderson comes into contact with Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), married to Chad (Chad Stahelski) and with two young boys but with no recollection of her past, on which Anderson based Trinity, a character in his game. Anderson struggles at times to differentiate between what he perceives as his reality from his dreams. His therapist (Neil Patrick Harris) prescribes him blue pills to suppress such occurrences, which one day he just stops taking.

Anderson operates a programme simulation called a modal, a testing environment, created to develop game characters. A girl named Bugs (Jessica Henwick) learns that the modal is running old code in a loop, that shows when Trinity first found Neo within the original Matrix. Bugs discovers a programme manifesting Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and helps free him before Anderson's business partner, Smith (Jonathan Groff), can erase the modal. After discovering his location, Bugs and Morpheus extract Anderson from the Matrix and learn that Smith is actually Agent Smith (as portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the first three films).

Neo wakes up in a pod covered in a gel like substance and with wires and probes protruding from his arms, chest, back, neck and mouth. He observes Trinity confined in another one nearby, as machines dispatched by Bugs to retrieve and transport him to Bugs' ship, and into the human stronghold, Io. There, he meets Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), who tells him that sixty years have passed in the real world since the Machine War, and that human survivors have joined forces with machines that defected to join human society. Though Neo is adamant he wants to rescue Trinity, Niobe opposes and orders Neo to stay out of the Matrix and imprisons him. Bugs and her crew disobey the order and bust Neo out of his cell in order that he can free Trinity.

Neo, Bugs and the crew enter the Matrix, where they are confronted by Smith and other exile programs including The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) who want the Matrix restored to its earlier format. A fight breaks out in an abandoned warehouse, and Neo battles Smith, ultimately gaining the upper hand as he steadily regains his hand to hand combat capabilities. They leave and locate Tiffany working in her motorcycle workshop, but just as Neo begins talking to her, his therapist appears and immobilises Neo by manipulating time to slow motion. He reveals his identity as the Analyst, a programme designed to study the human mind. He explains that after Neo and Trinity died, he was able to resurrect the pair to study them, by rebuilding their bodies, which explains why they have only aged twenty years in the last sixty. In doing so, he found that suppressing their memories but keeping them close produced an efficient, power-producing Matrix, resistant to the anomalies that resulted in the previous versions failing. Neo's release has destabilised the system and threatened a reboot of the Matrix, according to the Analyst, who has bought time from his superiors, whom he convinced that Neo would voluntarily return to his pod to avoid putting Trinity's life at risk.

Neo and Bugs forcibly exit the Matrix when another ship sent by Niobe brings their ship back to Io. Niobe takes Neo to Sati (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), an exile programme he previously met, whose parents were killed by the machines. Looking to avenge their death, Sati helps concoct a plan to free Trinity. Back in the Matrix at the cafe where Neo and Tiffany first met, Neo offers a deal with the Analyst that if he fails to convince Trinity to remember her past and voluntarily leave the Matrix, he would agree to return to his pod. The Analyst accepts. As Neo tries to convince Tiffany she's part of the Matrix, her family appears tempting her to stay. She initially gives in but before she has exited the cafe she rejects their pleas recalling her true identity as Trinity. As the Analyst attempts to kill her, Smith appears seeking revenge for his own imprisonment, which gives Neo, Trinity, and the others the chance to escape. What follows is a high octane chase through the streets with a swarm of sentient computer beings hot on the tail of Trinity and Neo riding on the back of a motorcycle as sentient bodies are shot, crushed, run over, mowed down and obliterated and cars explode all around them. 

Being the last waiting to be extracted, Neo and Trinity become stranded on the roof top of a skyscraper as heavily armed helicopters shoot off countless rounds of machine gun fire at them. Holding hands, they leap off the roof top hoping Neo is able to harness his ability to fly, but instead Trinity gains the ability, and flies them to safety. With their recently discovered control over the Matrix, both return to meet the Analyst, who now has taken on a submissive stance. They jokingly thank him for the opportunity of a fresh start, which they intend to use to remodel the Matrix as they deem most appropriate. The Analyst looks down but not out, as Neo and Trinity fly off into the sunset.  

'The Matrix Resurrections' is essentially a love story wrapped up in computer code with fast paced action, stunning visuals, and plenty of nods to the original trilogy using actual footage lifted straight from those first three films to remind or educate the viewer of what came before and how we got to this point. The film will no doubt please fans of those first three instalments, and it is easily the best since 1999's 'The Matrix' first hit cinema's screens with its bullet-time, red pill/blue pill, wire-fu fight sequences that defined an era of action Sci-Fi movies. The strong cast here also are a return to form for Reeves and Moss who especially have chemistry that is clearly evident in every scene they share together. At a running time of two and a half hours the film moves a long at a swift pace and never leaves you wanting, and the ending certainly leaves room for a follow-on movie, so whether this is defined as a sequel and the end of the franchise, or a reboot and the start of something new, remains to be seen. See it on the big screen - you won't be disappointed.

'The Matrix Resurrections' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC : Tuesday 15th September 2020.

'BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC' which I saw earlier this week is the PG Rated long awaited third instalment in the 'Bill & Ted' franchise following 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure' in 1989 and 'Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey' in 1991. Both of those films combined generated US$79M at the worldwide Box Office off the back of production budgets amounting to US$27M. This Sci-Fi comedy film is Directed by Dean Parisot whose previous feature film credits take in 'Galaxy Quest', 'Fun with Dick and Jane' and 'RED 2', was released in the US on 28th August and last week here in Australia, cost US$25M to produce and has so far grossed US$3.5M. It has generated largely positive Reviews.

Here Alex Winter reprises his role of William S. 'Bill' Preston Esq. and Keanu Reeves his role as Ted 'Theodore' Logan. Following a montage of the history of the Wyld Stallyns and their rise to meteoric super stardom and their inevitable fall from grace as they failed to write that one song that would unify the world, their CD sales took a sharp nosedive and the pair were destined to play low level gigs in dive bars in front of largely stoned or drunk patrons, Bill and Ted have remained surprisingly upbeat. Now in 2020, they are initially seen making a speech and then playing their latest song at the wedding of their mother/step mother (it's complicated) which goes horribly wrong and sounds like a cacophony of disjointed uncoordinated musical instruments all fighting against each other to be heard. 

After the failed wedding gig in front of family and friends, Ted confides in Bill that he thinks they well never write the prophesied song, and a local music store has offered him $6,500 for his Les Paul guitar which he is seriously considering taking up. However, their young daughters Theadora 'Thea' Preston (Samara Weaving) and Wilhelmina 'Billie' Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine) have great faith in their fathers and are their greatest supporters. They egg them on with words of encouragement. 

Meanwhile, Kelly (Kristen Schaal) the now grown up daughter of their earlier time travelling guide Rufus, arrives from seven hundred years in the future to take them to 2720, where they meet with The Great Leader (Holland Taylor), who is also Kelly's mother who advises them that they have until 7:17pm that evening to write the song that will unite the universe and prevent all reality from collapsing once and forever. 

Realising that it will be almost impossible for them to write such a song in just over seventy minutes they use Rufus's time travelling phone booth to steal the song from their future selves. Landing back home but two years hence in 2022, they learn that their future selves are even more unsuccessful than they were, and that their wives have left them. With Bill and Ted missing, the Great Leader sends a time-traveling robot named Dennis Caleb McCoy (Anthony Carrigan) to kill them, hoping therefore to restore balance to the universe. Kelly travels back to the present to warn them, but instead meets their daughters, Billie and Thea, who decide to help their fathers create the song. Using Kelly's time machine, Billie and Thea recruit musicians Jimi Hendrix (DazMann Still), Louis Armstrong (Jeremiah Craft), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Daniel Dorr), Ling Lun (the legendary founder of music in ancient China, played by Sharon Gee), and Grom (a drummer from before recorded history, played by Patty Anne Miller).

Bill and Ted travel to five years down the track to 2025, where they have seemingly become successful. However, they are tricked by their future selves, who try to pass off a song by Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Them Crooked Vultures) as their own. Billie, Thea, and their newly recruited band members from across time return to the present day to meet up with Kelly and a time-displaced Kid Cudi (Kid Cudi), but Dennis inadvertently kills them and sends them all to Hell. In the ensuing fracas Bill and Ted jump forward to 2030 and discover that their future selves are incarcerated in prison and have become ripped, muscle bound heavily tattooed inmates who now have an axe to grind with their past selves for leaving them at the mercy of the Police authorities during the bust at Dave Grohl's place, which led to their imprisonment. When their future selves get into a brawl with other inmates, Bill & Ted make a quick exit and jump forward to 2067.

There they find a much older Bill and Ted on their deathbeds in a hospital. The aged Bill and Ted give their younger selves a USB drive containing the fabled song written by Preston/Logan, stating that it must be performed at 7:17pm at 'MP 46'. Upon saying their final farewells and exiting the hospital, Dennis appears, but stands down upon learning Bill and Ted have the song, and painfully informs them that he killed their daughters, and every member of their band too. In an attempt to coax Dennis into killing them so they can rescue their daughters in Hell, Bill snaps the USB drive in half and tosses it away. This backfires as a distraught Dennis full of remorse, turns his killer laser beam weapon on himself, but Bill and Ted throw themselves in the way of the beam, so sending all three to their deaths and the depths of Hell. There Bill and Ted locate their daughters and the band. With the help of Billie and Thea, Bill and Ted square away their differences with their old bandmate Death (William Sadler) to return everyone alive to 2020.

The group arrive on a busy freeway at the 'MP 46' sign post as reality is collapsing all around them, and with only a matter of minutes left until 7:17pm. Bill and Ted realise that the 'Preston/Logan' hand written on the USB drive retrieved by Dennis, actually refers to Billie and Thea, and that the song must be performed by everyone across time and space. They are joined by their wives, Princess Elizabeth Logan (Erinn Hayes) and Princess Joanna Preston (Jayma Mays), who have both come to the realisation they are happiest in their current time period. The four use Rufus' phone booth to create infinite copies of themselves across time and space, handing instruments to everyone who ever lived. Everyone across reality performs the song together, with Billie and Thea producing, while Bill and Ted lead the band on guitar. The universe is repaired and everyone returns to their proper dimensions in time and space.

I would have to say that my expectations going into this film were not particularly high, and I came out not feeling surprised or disappointed either. This film largely hit my mark, and as the third instalment in the franchise with a 29 year hiatus between films two and three it does a largely respectable job of maintaining the quirkiness, the wackiness and the idiosyncrasies that made those first two instalments so popular and unique for their time. Keanu Reeves comes across as being just a little bored and non-plussed about the whole affair but Alex Winter more than makes up for him with his zeal, energy and innate positivity, while William Sadler gets undoubtedly the best lines in the little screen time he is afforded. Samara Weaving and Brigitte Lundy-Paine also put in a respectable turn as Bill and Ted's chips off the old blocks. The film has heart, is goofy, effects laden and there are no bad guys here, only a couple of aspiring muso lunkheads caught up in their own time warp trying to do the right thing by just about everyone they come into contact with, and living by their own credo to 'Be Excellent To Each Other'! A phrase worth heeding in these uncertain times! For lovers of 'Excellent Adventure' and 'Bogus Journey' this final instalment is sure to please and deftly recreates the silliness of those first two films. For everyone else, if you're not expecting too much, then you won't be disappointed.

'Bill & Ted Face the Music' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-