Fun comedy with decent acting, but certainly not a masterpiece.

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2015)

I will try to give this movie a critical overview, but it is a movie that is better if viewed without a critical eye. The whole movie is fueled by fun humor that is pretty easy to enjoy. Although it has some light sci-fi elements, it is by no means an action comedy, nor does is have an interesting story. The plot basis is fine, but there are no end twists or earth- shattering revelations and there are no time traveling issues (e.g. Marty McFly almost preventing his own birth by interfering with his parents' past). For those who haven't seen the movie, the essential plot is that Bill and Ted are failing history and cannot graduate high school without acing their final report. To make matters worse, Ted's dad is threatening to send Ted to military school if he flunks out. With help from a man named Rufus (George Carlin) from 2689, they travel through time to find historical figures to help them make the perfect history report.
While these two excellent dudes are presented and even treated like a unit, they are given individualized home situations and slightly different personalities. Ted (Keanu Reeves) is a bit more cheerful and goofy than Bill (Alex Winter), who has a few moments of irritation. While academically incompetent, they actually have some pretty good ideas and moments of resourcefulness throughout, rather like Harry and Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber. The whole time, they surf speak (e.g. "Excellent," "Triumphant," "Bodacious," etc.) and play air guitar solos as they collect their historical figures. These small quirks are what I feel makes this movie so enjoyable.
Of course, it isn't award winning in any regard. As mentioned before, the story is given very little thought. The scattered moments of sci-fi have pretty poor visual effects. Of course, it is a comedy so these technical aspects are not terribly important. Besides, the acting and scripting is satisfactory from the main characters, minor characters, and one- liner parts.
The comedy has a consistent personality and mood to it, but there is a pretty good balance of situational and verbal humor. The comedy is presented blatantly and doesn't have much Home Alone style slapstick or Monty Python style British humor. The back half of the movie has lots of gags involving eight historical figures being put in California in the 80's. Bill and Ted have some pretty funny lines, but it's also quite amusing to just watch their non-verbal reactions to various situations. The humor is family friendly, though not written like a kid's movie. If that is confusing, it's essentially Wayne's World style comedy on a PG level, but again it isn't a kid's movie.
You can watch this in almost any setting and not decrease the viewing experience. There's no problem if you watch it with a semi-boisterous crowd. If you don't find it funny or enjoyable after ten or so minutes, I would recommend turning it off. Your first impression of this film will probably be close to your opinion of it at the end. So in short, it's worth a try in search of a good comedy, but is by no means a masterpiece. Overall Rating: 8.7/10.