Long before Harold and Kumar, Jay and Silent Bob, and Beavis and Butthead, there were Bill & Ted. Best friends. Slackers. Surfer dude types that spoke in airhead decibels, using such descriptive terms as ‘Most Triumphant’ and ‘Totally’ in regular conversation, caring only about music and peaceful harmony among all living things.
“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” was released in 1989 which is fitting in itself. Its the type of story that could only have been produced in the 1980s, and it came just as that great decade was drawing to a close. In the years just before the advent of CGI and billion dollar effects, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” proves great things can come with simplicity.
A trippy movie on all levels, “Bill & Ted” offers nothing in the way of plausibility but that’s perfectly fine. The laughs are there. They may be stupid, but they’re there. And now, nearly 30 years later, it’s a cult film that boasts memorable lines and characters. “Who was Joan of Arc?” Asks a teacher. “Noah’s wife?” Replies Ted, not as a wise ass, but in actual belief that he’s given the correct response. Its pure comedy genius.
Played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, Bill and Ted are high school students in danger of flunking their history class, which would lead to the premature end of their fledgling garage rock band “The Wyld Stallyns,” and thus have a catastrophic impact on the future of the entire civilization. As I said it’s anything other than believable, but as Rufus (comedian George Carlin) narrates to open, you’ll find yourself in full acceptance of the situation.
Watching Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves as the titular slackers is a thing of hysteria. The pair meander about with an enviable aloofness, dropping their often used catchwords ‘Excellent!’ (30 times) and ‘Dude’ 70 times) to describe nearly every encounter.
Rufus is sent from the future to ensure a passing grade in the class, and he delivers a time travelling phone booth that the pair use to zip through history and kidnap famous figures from the past to help with the report. “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.” Ted philosophies after witnessing the effects of the tie machine. The pair encounter the likes of such historic greats as Napoleon, Socrates, and Billy the Kid to name a few.
Winter and Reeves fill the roles perfectly with a comradery not duplicated in other comedies. After a mishap in the middle ages, Bill and Ted are ordered into the Iron Maiden. Misinterpreting the torture device as the heavy metal band, they both quickly respond “Excellent!” As they strum air guitars with their fingers. Upon realizing what it really is, they quickly turn dour. “Bogus.” They come across as a pair of highly likable friends that don’t have a ,malicious bone in their body.
Backstories are thinly brushed upon but there isn’t much room or need for depth. Bill has a happy-go-lucky father who is married to a bombshell (Amy Stoch) that’s only a few years older than Bill. Ted has a hard lined police captain father who is threatening to send Ted to military school should he fail the history report.
Funny, fast paced, and deceptively fresh despite its age, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” is truly a cult classic that never gets old and is sure to make pleasant even the most non-triumphant of days.
by – Matt DeCristo
