Two heavy metallers jamming they're way through time

Rating: 10/10 (15 November 2007)

I'll bet when screenwriters Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson pitched Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure to the studios it raised quite a few eyebrows. The very idea of two teenage wannabe rockers hurtling through history in a time travelling phone box must have sounded off the wall. But you can never really gauge people's tastes. Or what they will buy into. And quite unexpectedly, Bill & Ted went on to be one of the surprise sleeper hits of the late 80s.
It may have helped that only a couple of years previously Universal had a major hit with Back to the Future, the similar story of a teen travelling through time. But Bill & Ted isn't a complete ripoff. Far from it. Even though it has the same spirit and similar good nature about it, it is quite a different film.
The film begins far into our distant future. 2688 to be precise. The world has become a Utopian society through two young men, Bill S. Preston Esq (Alex Winters), and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves). Bill & Ted actually live in the late 20th Century, but their band the "Wyld Stallyns" has inspired others for generations to come.
But Bill & Ted have a task to accomplish before fulfilling they're destiny as saviours of the Earth. Passing History. Bill & Ted are in danger of flunking ("most heinously") out of high school. If that happens, Ted will be shipped off to military school, Wyld Stallyns will never take off, and our future is history.
But they have help from Rufus (George Carlin), a visitor from the future. With the aid of a time travelling phone box, Bill & Ted head to different points in history, gathering historical figures from all over the world, all over time. In a last ditch effort to graduate from high school.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is a film that shouldn't even begin to work. And yet oddly enough it does. It's the lightness of touch director Stephen Herek brings that makes the film fly. Not to mention two "excellent" performances from Keanu Reeves and Alex Winters.
They play their parts with perfectly gormless charm. They're two affable lunkheads who look and sound completely spaced out. Its easy to forget this was the beginning of Keanu Reeve's career. For all of his later success, Reeves is a terribly wooden actor, with hardly anything in the way of expressive performing. But he is absolutely perfect as Ted.
Reeves has the whole heavy-metal teenspeak down pat. Its almost good acting on his part. His slow-witted monotone voice is ideally suited to that of a laidback dimwit. I think Reeves missed his true calling in life!
Sadly Alex Winters' career never took off into the stratosphere the way Reeves' did. But he is just as good. He gets the lions share of all the lingo: "Bogus...heinous...non-triumphant." Reeves and Winters are so superb together. Every scene that pairs them together is a joy.
The film gets a lot of its comic mileage from Bill & Ted's inability to comprehend the enormity of they're endeavour. When they arrive in Mediaeval England, they assume being thrown into an iron maiden is a meeting with the band of the same name. The witty screenplay by Solomon and Matheson is full of funky amusements. And that's all before we get to the inspired second half.
Once Bill & Ted have returned from they're time-trip, all they're guests are unleashed on sunny California. Napoleon discovers the wonders of the water slide. Joan of Arc leads an aerobics class. Even Beethoven makes the logical leap from piano to electric keyboard.
Bill & Ted may be entertainment of the lowest gear. But its still entertainment. It's even unexpectedly clever at the unlikeliest of moments. Like when Bill & Ted meet future versions of themselves, who have come back from the trip they're about to take.
And we mustn't leave out George Carlin's Rufus. He's just as mellow and laidback as our heroes. I would have liked to have seen more of him. He's such an engaging screen presence. He quite lights up the film whenever he's around.
If the film has any flaws they're only minor. The idea of a time travelling phone box is something that's been ripped off from Doctor Who, and the film perhaps glosses over some of history's darkest chapters, but nonetheless, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is supremely silly and good-natured. It gets by on its sheer sense of fun alone. The sequel is a polar opposite, and makes for an interesting companion piece, but its the original that rocks!
Party on dudes!