May 9, 2014 - Written by: Emma Farley

Feel Good Film: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Dudes, there’s this totally bodacious movie you need to check out this weekend. School got you stressed? Party on with Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

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Most of our aliljoy writers and readers are from that in-between generation – the one where we were only babies/toddlers when the 1980s classics were originally released but saw them at a young enough age to not get too nostalgic and still appreciate them. You know, the likes of Back to the Future, The Karate Kid, The Goonies, The Breakfast Club… Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure completely passed me by as a teenager and I dismissed it as I got older because I assumed it was a stoner/slacker/Kevin Smith-esque* comedy. Earlier this week I was proved wrong.

Bill and Ted are a couple of high school guys who have started their own band, Wyld Stallyns. They dream of making it big but their hopes could soon be dashed; if they don’t pass their looming history report, Ted’s dad is going to send him to military school. Fortunately, some futuristic dudes sense the trouble and send a guy back in time to help them with the assignment. You see, Wyld Stallyns is pivotal to the future of the world and Bill and Ted simply cannot fail the assignment. And, it just so happens that this dude has a time travelling telephone box, which they can use to travel through time, ‘borrow’ a few significant people throughout history (including Billy the Kid, Socrates, Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln) and use them in their presentation. But surviving the different eras isn’t easy, especially when they arrive smack in the middle of a war, piss off a King and manage to lose Napoleon in the present day!

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It’s easy to shrug off a film like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, especially if you’re not a fan of Sad Keanu‘s (aka Keanu Reeves) more contemporary, wooden performances, but it’s such a fun film! It’s a bromance, buddy film, teen flick, slacker comedy and road movie all in one and the ‘heroes’ are so endearingly loveable that you can’t help rooting for them.

Despite Sad Keanu going on to star in blockbusters such as Speed and The Matrix, his co-star Alex Winter didn’t go on to do much else, besides bit-parts in TV shows and the odd under-the-radar directing gig. The film’s director, Stephen Herek, went on to make further late 80s/early 90s guilty pleasures Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead and The Mighty Ducks but not a helluva lot else. Fortunately, this cult classic will live on in the hearts and minds of those with a soft spot for 80s teen comedies.

If you’re looking for a feel good film to watch this weekend, look no further. Just remember: be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes!

* Kevin Smith-esque is not an insult, rather I was worried that someone was a try-hard and getting in all wrong.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘Feel Good Film: Silver Linings Playbook‘?