Dude, this was like...totally cool!

Rating: 10/10 (30 June 2005)

I didn't come of age in the '80s, so I missed the era when people mindlessly called each other "dude" and said "totally" a lot. But fortunately, I've seen "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", so I have some inkling of that culture. The movie of course focuses on SoCal high school students Ted Logan (Keanu Reeves) and Bill Preston (Alex Winter) who want to start a heavy metal band, but are flunking school. Little do they know that the fate of the universe in 700 years will depend on whether or not they ace their history report. No worries! Rufus (George Carlin) comes from the future and gives the two boys a phone booth, and they go back in time and pick up Socrates (pronounced SO-krayts), Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ludwig van Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Billy the Kid and Sigmund Freud. Needless to say, these historical figures are a little befuddled when they arrive in San Dimas, and the people in San Dimas are befuddled by them.
Mostly, the movie is an excuse to have Bill and Ted be the dopey dudes that they are. Whether it's Ted saying that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife (which, it turns out, some people actually believe), or the two boys getting slinky with some medieval princesses, the movie's got something for everyone. It is TOTALLY AWESOME! If you ask me, they should have also picked up Mahatma Gandhi and Alfred Hitchcock.
One more thing: Stephen Herek scored a personal triumph with this movie, as he did with "Critters" and "Mr. Holland's Opus". Too bad that he drug himself down with fare such as "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", "The Three Musketeers", "Rock Star" and "Life or Something Like It".