It may sound a bit simplistic when metalheads Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves) offer up their accumulated wisdom in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” telling the denizens of the future, “Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!”
But hearing that simple yet heartfelt declaration of positivity has brought genuine tears to my eyes the last couple of times I watched “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Its message of kindness and positivity seems more relevant than ever in our current bitter, divided times.
That message is available for free now, with all three “Bill & Ted” movies streaming on Tubi. It’s a remarkably consistent trilogy, even though nearly 30 years passed between the second and third installments, and the movies transcend the particular pop-culture moments in which they were produced.
Winter and Reeves give pitch-perfect performances as the dim-witted, good-natured best friends who just want to rock out, even if their music is somehow meant to save the world. Writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon keep the creative vision consistent while working with three different directors, ensuring that the goofy humor and heartwarming purity of Bill and Ted remain intact.
‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ is one of the best comedies of the 1980s
Part of that purity comes from the straightforward concept of the original “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” in which the title characters travel through time with the relatively low-stakes goal of passing their high school history class.
Since Bill and Ted’s band Wyld Stallyns is destined to unite all of humanity in the future, though, it’s imperative that they don’t flunk out of school and that Ted isn’t sent to a military academy in Alaska. To that end, future scholar Rufus (George Carlin) travels back to 1988 to give Bill and Ted the tools they need to ace their final history report.
“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” is a surprisingly well-constructed time-travel story, with cleverly placed foreshadowing and plot points that come together elegantly in the finale. What makes it memorable, though, is the smart-stupid humor, along with the camaraderie between Bill and Ted.
Like their spiritual successors, Wayne and Garth and Beavis and Butt-Head, Bill and Ted are deceptively witty in their own immature way, and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” is full of memorable dialogue. Matheson and Solomon create a distinctive lexicon that’s part mimicry of contemporary Southern California dude-speak, part original invention.
As Bill and Ted traverse the centuries, collecting notable historical figures for their history presentation, the movie gently mocks both intellectual snobbery and the slacker disdain for learning.
Bill and Ted don’t know how to pronounce “Socrates,” but they also gain genuine insight about history and contemporary life along the way. It might be a stretch to call “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” educational, but the movie has an infectious sense of curiosity.
‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’ is a bizarre but endearing sequel
The unexpectedly huge success of “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” led to high demand for a sequel, and with their 1991 follow-up “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey,” Matheson and Solomon resist just repeating the formula of the first movie.
Instead, they create a weird, sometimes unwieldy sequel that sends Bill and Ted to the afterlife and pits them against a megalomaniacal villain from the future.
The villain never really poses much of a threat, but Winter and Reeves have fun playing the evil robot versions of Bill and Ted who are sent back to kill their alter egos and are just as cheerfully exuberant about being bad as the real Bill and Ted are about playing music.
Bill and Ted’s afterlife odyssey takes them into surreal versions of their own personal hells, allows them to possess Bill’s dad and one of his police colleagues, and introduces them to the franchise’s awkward, lonely version of Death (William Sadler).
While “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” loses some of the elegance of the first movie, it retains the affability and enthusiasm of the main characters, even when they’re literally in Hell. Even Death himself isn’t immune to their charms, and they befriend him and make him part of their band.
‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ is a legacy sequel done right
While “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” ends with the apparent global success of Wyld Stallyns, fulfilling the prophecy about the unifying power of the duo’s music, Matheson and Solomon come up with a smart and affecting way to bring the characters back in 2020’s “Bill & Ted Face the Music.”
Middle-aged Bill and Ted have fallen into obscurity after their brief initial burst of popularity, and they’ve still yet to write the song that will bring the entire world together.
“Bill & Ted Face the Music” is a funny, bittersweet reflection on aging, bringing back multiple characters from the first two movies, including Sadler as Death and Amy Stoch as the amusingly agreeable Missy, the former spouse of both Bill and Ted’s fathers, who’s now getting married to Bill’s younger brother Deacon (Beck Bennett).
Missy is a perfect example of the series’ wholesomeness, a character who could have been a generic trophy wife but is instead a beloved member of both characters’ families.
Winter and Reeves easily slip back into the roles of Bill and Ted, and like many decades-later sequels, “Bill & Ted Face the Music” also introduces a new generation of characters, with Jack Haven and Samara Weaving as Bill and Ted’s daughters Billie and Thea.
Haven and Weaving capture the wide-eyed essence of Bill and Ted without relying on mimicry, and their own excellent adventure through history is just as entertaining as the new journey that Bill and Ted take into their sometimes dark personal future.
The message of “Bill & Ted Face the Music” remains optimistic and empowering, and the duo’s unwavering faith in themselves and the power of an awesome riff feels inspiring. Maybe you won’t shed a tear like I did, but watching the trilogy will still offer a most triumphant experience.
All three “Bill & Ted” movies are now streaming on Tubi.