Director: Stephen Herek
Writer: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon (Screenplay)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin, Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman
Plot: Two seemingly dumb teens set off on a quest to prepare the ultimate historical presentation with the help of a time machine.
Tagline – History is about to be rewritten by two guys who can’t spell..
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure starts as two slackers Bill (Winter) and Ted (Reeves) who are wanting to be music roskstars but leaves them struggling in High School and they both need to past a history exam or they will flunk the year.
Rufus (Carlin) has been sent back through time to put the pair back in line, which will see them traveling through time to meet some of the most important historical figures, causing more problems than they could ever imagine.
Thoughts on Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Characters & Performances – Bill & Ted are the best friends who want to be in their band Wyld Stallyns, they have one day to finish their history reports or face flunking high school. Little do the pair know, they are a major part of history and they need to pass this class, which will see them needing to travel through time to meet different historical icons that will give them the answers they need and learn how to take life that little bit more seriously. Alex Winter & Keanu Reeves are both great together with great chemistry through the film. Rufus is the guide for the two, who does work very well in the film. Where the characters fall short is in how the historical figures are portrayed, as poor comic book like characters, instead of showing a remote amount of serious behavior.
Story – The story here follows to high school slackers who get to travel through time to meet historical icons to help them with a history report which sees them getting involved of a string of miss-adventures. This is a story which at the time of release would have been a lot of fun, but the world has changed and nearly everything feels outdated. The idea of the different people from history being studied in school in confusing, as a select few that they meet would never come up in any history class either. The idea that the slackers are the heroes of their own destiny is important, with the musical dream being something that is easy to get behind. We do get the story which will commit to the silly side, holding back any attempts to keep things serious in anyway.
Themes – Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a film that will take the adventure through time, which does work and give plenty of comical moments, well in the eyes of the writers, not taking history too seriously, we do get to head to different locations in time, which will show us how important learning history can be.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is an adventure comedy which hasn’t aged as well as it would have liked to, even if it has two enjoyable lead characters.
