Clever Teen Comedy.

Rating: 6/10 (24 October 2010)

I've only been able to catch snatches of this comedy so, though I know the essentials of the plot, I don't know how it ended. Presumably in a triumph for Bill, Alex Winter, and Ted, Keanu Reeves. Just a few comments.
One is that the writing and the performances are concordant. Winter and Reeves both play their characters -- high schoolers in search of material for a term paper -- with open-mouthed stupidity. They're both pretty good too. There's hardly a second that they take seriously.
Another is that the writing matches the plumbless depths of the characters' ignorance. Sigmund Freud becomes "Frood," for instance, and Beethoven becomes "Beat-Oven" and Socrates turns into "Sew" and "Crates." They think "Thekid" is Billy the Kid's last name, as in "Mister Thekid." A third observation is that, amusing as the story can be, it's a pastiche, not as original as it thinks. The two characters, to whom everyone is "Dude" (pronounced "Dewd"), are clearly derived from Sean Penn's character, Jeff Spicoli, in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," which appeared -- and became a hit -- seven years earlier. Winter even resembles Sean Penn. The movie also borrows the time travel device from "Back to the Future" and its sequels, which began to appear -- to great commercial success -- four years earlier.
This film itself was sufficiently successful to generate its own sequel -- "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey". "Back to the Future" had two sequels. And that's not to mention the several television series and merchandising.
I laughed frequently while watching this thing. It raised an interesting question though: How stupid can you get? I mean, not just Bill and Ted but Hollywood and its MBAs. Is there some meaning to Bill and Ted's life other than facile self gratification? Is there any meaning in Hollywood other than a huge number preceded by a dollar sign? Has the well of imagination dried up? Is there anything at all left in it?