input: The first film had little ambition so nothing sticks to the screen. It was a bad version of 'Back to the Future' with zero charm. Once accepted that Bill & Ted are nitwits, the joke can only get hammered at the audience for so long before it breaks.

This is a surprise. This is your only spoiler warning...

By today's standards, this is more fun. This was shunned upon release, sad considering that more talent is involved than the first time. We get the photographer of 'Face/Off', the editor of 'Fugitive', a production designer from Burton's early work, and the sound designer of 'Matrix'.

The writers made up for their shallow first outing with something deep. Since this was shunned by the fanbase and public, the director probably decided the style was too extreme. It's not, it fits the material. Like 'Death Becomes Her' and 'Catch-22', this dares to be smart, but we like our movies "simple" so we don't buy it. Probably since this dared to be different is why it took 12 producers to pull it off. What's so good?

--Nice self-reference towards Keanu; from airhead to Messiah. See also Arnold Schwarzenegger.

--Joss hates his creations as much as he hates their counterparts, he makes his own hatred. The Evil B&T and the "good robot usses" have the same vocabulary as their originals: lesser copies and depreciation of language.

--The "duality" motif. Nowhere else is this evident than in the photography styles, lots of high and low angles. They even use Roy Brocksmith from 'Total Recall' to emphasize the point.

--The "choices" motif. I don't know where this started in the genre (maybe 'Ghostbusters'), but it's used pretty well here. It even boils down to the 7 games against death--Battleship and Club.

--Film self-reference, even present in the game against Death (Clue). This is smarter than Tarantino or Brooks. Notice the Premier magazine cover at the end: "Bill and Ted: The Movie." Ironic also how Death and Nomolos were villains in the 'Die Hard' and 'Lethal Weapon' sequels.

I still have some minor nits, but nothing compared to the original. Music and film are different mediums so it makes no sense why many scripts revolve around the former--particularly in the teen market. Carlin is a great comedian, but in these movies he's wasted. Also, for all the daring this effort shows, even cracking gay jokes, they can't kill a cat?

So, despite looking like a Nickelodeon production, this is incredibly interesting. From this movie we got Beavis and Butt-Head. "We're in Heaven and we just mugged three people."

Final Analysis = = Midrange Material

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input: This movie raises a number of pressing questions in my mind. Firstly, how has Jennifer Tilly managed to sustain a film acting career for all these years based on that ridiculous squeaky voice and the very limited range of hammy facial expressions she employs? Secondly... what on earth were the people responsible for making this offensive and deeply repulsive film thinking of? And thirdly... given that there were people perverted enough to decide to make dreck like this, shouldn't there have been someone in the system - the studio, the distributors, or somewhere - sane enough to prevent it actually getting completed and released. You really would have to search a very, very long way to turn up another movie as profoundly nasty as this... and it isn't even billed as a horror movie - which, inasmuch as it can be seen as belonging to any legitimate film genre, it certainly is. The movie wallows from beginning to end in the sickest kind of madness, violence and abuse, and has essentially no redeeming features at all. I'm not actually advocating censorship (which I don't believe in)... but I really can't see how anybody could conceivably draw anything positive from watching a film like this.

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input: This is the kind of movie England can do in its sleep, and that's meaning it as a compliment. Because of the success of very British comedies of manners situated at the end or beginning of the Twentieth Century, most notably adaptations of E. M. Forster novels, this very Merchant-Ivory like production was received in the light it brought when it was released in 1992. It was an exceptional year for actress Miranda Richardson, having appeared as the wife of Jeremy Irons who discovers her husband has been having an affair in the worst possible way in DAMAGE, and as the IRA terrorist who eventually dons a wig and gets a nasty comeuppance in THE CRYING GAME. Here, she plays a quiet, serene type of woman in Rose Arbuthnot, one who with Josie Lawrence who plays Lottie Wilkins, embarks on a trip that is filled with self-discovery. They are joined by an unlikely pair of ladies: one Caroline Dester, played by the enigmatic Polly Walker who resembles a very vamp Louise Brooks (and not just in the style of hair she wears), and Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright). This foursome will eventually merge together into becoming deep friends only because the story is so filled with spring and an overwhelming, dreamy sweetness it almost preordains it, but this is fine; it's the movie it wants to be. Alfred Molina and Jim Broadbent (then relatively new to American audiences) fill out the cast as the husbands of the two main characters, and all in all, Mike Newell makes with his movie a living thing of near-magical elements, full of quiet moments and wonder.

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input: I actually saw China O'Brien II before I ever saw the original China O'Brien. And I have to say that the first incarnation is actually worse. But: worse = funnier! And funnier = better. If you're a bad movie fan like I am, this is great material. If, however, you are looking for any sort of meaningful plot, acting ability, or movie-making skill, this is best avoided. The best part is how they filmed all the fighting sequences in stuttering fast-forward. Hilariously bad. See it for a laugh, see it for mindless entertainment, but whatever you do, see it for free on TV.

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negative