Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Someone already made the point that Amazon's official reviewers often seem entirely out of step with their hordes of unofficial ones. This movie is a great example. It deftly avoids pitfalls that sink other films and does so seemingly effortlessly. It gains so much in sublety that it falls beneath the Hollywood radar of critical acclaim.

First, here's a film that delves into the real entanglements of time travel, but unlike Back to the Future, keeps it light. George Carlin plays himself, a burnt out hippie in the role of enlightened visitor from the future. Like Jeff Goldblum, he always plays himself, only the scenery changes-check him out as the priest in Dogma (which is not at all a family film). Keanu Reeves does a great job in this film which, if it falls in the Doofus Duo genre, is at least as good as the Wayne's World and Dumb and Dumber films.

It's also cleaner. Anyone can write a dirty joke; try writing a clean one. This movie is full of them. Chesterton said it's harder to write a joke than a sermon. Obviously that's why there are so many (bad) sermons. This film succeeds with both good-natured humor and the light-hearted message of "Be excellent to each other." Has the Golden Rule ever been put better?

Why is this film so much better than its sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, which has an excellent if unrealized story line? Because all the special FX budget was spent on the "hell" sequence in that film, which bogs down the rest of the picture. There's a most excellent line of comic books that accompany the Bill and Ted saga, by the same artist who did Milk and Cheese. The story arc is both humorous and gripping. This is one of the few properties that really could deliver a few sequels and works well as an animated series. I join hundreds of reviewers who love this film in recommending this most excellent DVD.

This is brilliant, and has inspired many imitations, but none come close to this unique, goofy comedy that reminds me more of the silent screen gems than of what has passed for funny in recent years.

The pairing of Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves was a stroke of genius...they work so well together, and are so convincing as naive airheads that some people, DUH ! actually believe this is what these marvelous actors are like in real life..NOT ! This is great acting, folks. Wonderfully written, the premise is hilarious and all the characters so perfectly cast. I love Al Leong as Genghis Khan. His antics in the mall never fail to make me roar with laughter..."we've got a live one !".

With every viewing, I see more details to amuse me...and it has an endearing, sweet spirit that warms my heart...and always remember: "Be excellent to each other !".

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Here's a whoppin' good adventure comedy that succeeds bedause it so unabashedly pushes the limits and risks absurdity. A couple of high school students are so clueless that when asked who Joan of Arc was, one replies "Noah's wife?". But this title pair are about to embark on a life-changing adventure! Suddenly they meet a strange dude with a telephone booth altered into a time-machine! What a concept of how to build a time-machine! I wondered if they thought about how we're living in a time when phone booths have become a rarity? How it won't be long, if things continue on their present course, until you couldn't make a time-machine out of a phone booth until you first used another time-machine to go back in time and get a phone booth? Well it's an interesting twist, whether intentional or not! Once back in time, the title characters transport several historical figures to the present, and thereby change their world. One of those figures is the very Joan of Arc they shortly before didn't know from Noah's wife! I found it most uncanny what historical figures they were able to bring back to the present, including no less that three that were me in former lives! They got it pretty right about Genghis Khan! I'm sure I would really really have liked twinkies when I was he! The part about Billy-the-kid they stretch a bit, even addressing him as "Mr. the Kid". Now no one really ever addressed me that way in my former life as Billy-the-Kid, but what a neat concept! Now some things of the present get streched just a bit too. For example, Bill and Ted get themselves out of one bind by use of a programmable audio tape player, programming it to play a certain message on the following afternoon. Now who's ever heard of that? Time-machines have become a familiar thing, at least in movies. But programmable audio tape players? Not even any video recorder that I know of can be programmed to play at a certain time; programming applies only to recording. Much less have I even imagined an audio tape machine programmable as to either recording or playing. So the movie does employ a few unrealistic devices. But it employs them most cleverly and hilariously!

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As a graduate student in history and a onetime Californian, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is my favorite guilty pleasure. I adore this movie.

Honestly, what's not to love? Two clueless but loveable high school guys from 1988 use a telephone booth that travels through time to collect historical figures for their history report. This goofy-sounding plot is pulled off so astonishingly well that you never stop laughing.

So, what about historical accuracy? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that as far as comedies parodying history go, this one stays remarkably true to the characters of the historical figures. While they don't get enough on-screen time -their interactions with modern-day San Dimas and with each other are for me the best parts of the movie -you still get to see occasional small flashes of what makes them tick. Freud is intellectually curious, Napoleon is megalomaniacal, Joan of Arc thinks Ted must be a part of God's plan, and Billy the Kid tries to fit in with Bill and Ted while subtly attempting to flirt with Joan. (If you don't believe me on that last bit, watch the scene where they're washing dishes together.) Of course, some lines are played purely for laughs, like Socrates's profound revelation, "Like the sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives." But those lines are rarely done at the expense of a character's integrity. And before you come down too hard on Lincoln ending his speech at the history report with "Party on, dude," remember that in real life, Lincoln was our wittiest president, a man who contemporaries say could never pass up a joke.

So for those of you who don't mind your history tinged with a bit of irreverence, watch, relax, and enjoy, because somehow this movie just comes together. With its fast pace and cheerful sense of fun, it's one of the best comedies there is.

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This movie is fun for kids and adults alike, and to learn historical figures on the way. The idea of two rocker dudes going back in time in a phonebooth to kidnap historical figures for a high school history report is hilarious. Billy the Kid, Ghengis Khan, and Socrates are really funny, and especially Napoloeon. They also capture Joan of Arc, Sigmund Freud and Abe Lincoln. Watch for Rufus played by George Carlin. Man, when I was young, my best friend and I went to the movies 5 times to see this movie. It became a great movie that me and my dad mutually loved and watched over and over...if i was feeling bad or my dad came in the door, he would open his arms and smile, saying "party on, dudes!!!!"

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