Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

It's easy to see why I liked Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure as a kid. Of all the movies I've gone through so far Bill and Ted is by far the most fun. Relentlessly, unapologetically so.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is about a duo of surfer-speaking buffoons in high school. Bill S. Preston, Esquire (Alex Winter) is "the brains" of the pair. He has a step Mom who is a major babe and only a few years older than him. Missy has the allure of a femme fatale, but the only dangerous thing about her is probably STDs. When any man is in her presence - like Bill's Father - everything else is ignored. Ted Theodore Logan is Bill's best friend. Together they are: WYLD STALLYNS!! *air guitar motion* Wyld Stallyns is their two-man band. The only threat to the band is Ted's Father and their failing history grades. If Ted flunks history his Father will send Ted to military school in Alaska.

Most egregious.


Fortunately Rufus - a time traveller from the future - appears with a time-travelling phone booth so Bill and Ted can use to travel through time and collect historical figures for their oral history report.

It's a preposterous story, but it works because every character is committed to going along with it and having fun. It helps that the idiocy of Bill and Ted is infectiously funny. Their history teacher Mr. Ryan asks what they have learned in his class.

Bill: We have, uh ... we've learned that the world has a great history.

Ted (reading off the black board): Yes, and that thanks to great leaders such as Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, and Socratic Method the world is full of history.

There's an odd depth to some of Bill and Ted's statements. Like when Bill and Ted meet their future counterparts from a few hours in the future and receive advice. Ted is skepitcal. "What if we were lying?" Bill responds: "Why would we lie to ourselves?" Why indeed, but it happens. The implication is we're better off being honest with our own motivations.

When I was in grade eight our teacher asked us to submit a short story. No topic was given. I entitled mine "Jimmy Mustard Plaster and his Amazing Magical Sock." I'd like to think that story was inspired in part by the whimsy and quirkiness of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. My teacher told me in private later that he had only asked us to submit those stories for his friend who was a psychologist doing a study on youth. Something tells me that psychologist considered my story an "outlier."

I enjoyed writing that story. I enjoy being silly. Perhaps Bill and Ted help with that. Every historical figure who is snatched accepts Bill and Ted's mission quickly, much like we must. This helps propel the story while an understanding of history helps make the situations funny.


The best of the scenes is when Napoleon is lost and finds himself in a water park called "Waterloo." He approaches the entrance of a water slide with hesitation. "Qu'est-ce que c'est ça? (What is this)" he asks himself. A pool attendent shoves him down the slide screaming. Mid-way down he begins to giggle.

That's the abadon with which we must accept this excellent adventure. We can't help ourselves. The film's appeal has the same pull on Napoleon; gravity's twisty, winding, awesome journey to a bodacious splash; all we want to do is climb back up to the top and go again.

This post part of a collaboration project between 2dreviews and 2guys1movie. Jim and Puneet have kindly allowed me to experience their "1 movie + 1 review a day" for one week. Over on my site I do an "Auto-Film-Biography" that follows the movies I watched as a kid that made me love movies. Thanks very much to Jim and Puneet for allowing me to continue that project here for a week as a guest writer!