Viking Night: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
By Bruce Hall
August 27, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Sure, there's more to it than that - or less - depending on your point of view. But know now that Bill and Ted has the kind of premise where you’re either in or you’re out. You can either accept what I just said, or you can’t. And if you can’t, there’s no reason for you to be watching. Now that we understand each other, I guess I should warn you about something else. If you’re not old enough to know what a phone booth is, you've never worn a wristwatch and you’ve never seen a compact disc before, you might have a little trouble with some of the basic concepts we’re about to cover. So are you ready?
Most excellent.
Bill S. Preston (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) are best friends who are on the verge of flunking out of San Dimas High School. They aren’t in the habit of studying, choosing instead to sharpen their Jeff Spicoli surfer slang and hang out in Bill’s garage, fumbling around with a pair of guitars. The two talentless teens imagine themselves one day bathed in riches, and dominating the world with their imaginary rock band, "Wild Stallyns" (pronounced “stallions”, spelled like the rantings of a head injury patient). Judging by the quality of the gear in his garage, Bill is trust fund kid. He’s also an affable meathead who shares a boundary-free household with his dad - a middle aged lothario - and his trophy wife. Ted lives alone with his own, far more demanding father, who also happens to be the local police chief. When boys' teacher informs them they have 24 hours to ace their final exam or miss graduation, Ted glumly prepares to spend the next four years in military school, while Bill gears up for a future pumping gas at the Circle K.
And then George Carlin shows up from 700 years in the future with a magic phone booth, and a chance for southern California's most prolific underachievers to redeem themselves. More specifically, a mysterious and stylish time traveler named Rufus (Carlin) reveals to Bill and Ted that their band is destined to be a success, and that their music will one day transform society. Their sick beats will one day become the basis of society. Their tasty guitar solos will eventually eliminate hunger, war, disease, and possibly even bad breath. But if they don't pass their history exam, this glorious future will never exist. So using Rufus' time machine - the ersatz phone box - our two titular teens begin a freewheeling, far-fetched fandango into the past to kidnap as many historical figures as they can. The plan is to bring them back to the present, impress their history teacher, and then send everyone back where they came from. It’s all as easy as sharing an ice cream Sunday with Napoleon.
Stop looking at me like that. I'm totally not making this up.
Anyway, Bill and Ted get their hands on Genghis Khan, Beethoven and Socrates - just for starters - and manage to convince them to help out with the report, because of course they do. But the world of San Dimas circa 1988 isn't quite ready for the likes of Billy the Kid. Historical figures start to go off the reservation, Bill falls in love with his mom (it’s a slow burning joke), Ted’s dad is a little smarter than the average Nazi, and hyper advanced time travel equipment turns out to require regular maintenance. To say there's a lot going on here doesn't go far enough, and to call it the narrative equivalent of a mid-air collision is probably overstating things. But there’s a fine line between suspending your disbelief, and dispensing with everything you believe - and this movie just pole vaults over that line with a big, shit-eating grin on its face. I’m not kidding when I say the whole story is based entirely on a one sentence premise that could have been dreamed up by a 12-year-old boy. You really have no choice but to accept it, although I guess it helps if you used to be a 12-year-old boy.
So as long as you can look at it like that, what's not to like? Sure, the last 30 minutes fall apart like bad sushi. And you'd think that kidnapping people from history would change the future, but that's where you'd be a totally non-triumphant dill-hole. This isn't that kind of movie; it's the kind where Abe Lincoln keeps it real in the food court of a shopping mall while Genghis Khan crushes it barbarian style in a sporting goods store. But there's a good natured self-awareness to Bill and Ted that makes it a lot easier to accept than you'd think. The special effects are typical for the time, it's got an entertaining soundtrack, it's eminently quotable, and while none of the performances are what you'd call groundbreaking (Keanu Reeves would never again seem so real), Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure proudly scales that Mount Stupid without oxygen, holds up its hilariously, stupidly improbable, paper thin premise with both hands and screams gloriously unto the heavens:
"Are you not entertained?!?"
Look, I try to judge movies by their own standards. Once the universe and the logic that governs it get established, does the movie stick to that? Do the characters behave in ways that are consistent with their place in this world? If it’s a comedy, does it make me laugh? Does it have cavemen chewing gum, Sigmund Freud hitting on teenagers or Joan of Arc teaching aerobics? Does George Carlin shred on guitar? Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure boasts all of these things, plus an inspirational message about how much better off the world would be if more people used the word “party” as a verb. This is not high art - Martin Scorsese does not wish he made this movie. But I'm glad someone did, because once in a while all you really want is a fun, stupid movie that earnestly - and shamelessly - delivers exactly what it promises.