This year has been a series of awful events. Starting with the COVID pandemic to the more recent politically charged US elections, hope and joy seem to have been in short supply throughout most of 2020 and the future continues to look bleak. However, as with many things, we can find some comfort in the past, and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a comedy about the future of humanity being threatened, seems to be more appropriate than ever.
The plot of the film starts off in the far future, where humanity has developed a utopian society inspired by musicians known simply as The Two Great Ones. Rufus – played by comedian George Carlin – points out that this future was threatened 700 years ago, and he has to travel back in time to fix the problem. Hijinks ensue as he travels back to the year 1988 to help Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan – Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves respectively – pass their history class, the results of which could change the future.
At first glance, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is just a eighties’ duo comedy. However, this film may arguably be the peak of eighties’ duo comedies. Though Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves’ have appeared in a few notable roles before this film – Winter starring in The Lost Boys alongside Kiefer Sutherland and Reeves in Youngblood alongside Patrick Swayze – their performance in this movie as two loveable goofballs helped immortalize them in cinema. The franchise was successful enough to spawn two sequels, one in 1991 and more recently in the summer of 2020, where the actors returned to fill in their previous roles. Additionally, while George Carlin is best known for his comedy, he also dabbled in acting and his role as the pair’s time travelling mentor is one of his most memorable film performances.
One of the writers on the film was Chris Matheson, the son of author Richard Burton Matheson. Richard Matheson is best known for his 1954 novel I Am Legend, which follows a single human survivor after the rest of the species is transformed due to a global pandemic. He also co-wrote the script for the first film adaptation, the 1964 film The Last Man on Earth. It’s interesting to look back on the heritage of Bill and Ted: not only does the comedic and light-hearted nature of the film contrast greatly to the grim tone of I Am Legend, but also in how father and son imagined the future. Both have the basic conflict of their protagonists fighting for the future of humanity, but Richard Matheson has an almost cynical view of the situation while Chris Matheson seems to view it through rose tinted glasses. It’s interesting to see how this film portrays the future when its heritage is considered.
For a film focused around the basis of the power of music, it’s to be expected that Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure would have good music. With that being said, the movie has an outstanding soundtrack. The album is filled to the brim of feel good rock songs, featuring bands such as Extreme. One of the most two notable songs are Big Pig’s ‘I Can’t Break Away’, which effectively puts the audience in the mindset for an adventure as it plays alongside the time machine first appearing.
The other is Robbie Robb’s ‘In Time’. This song plays twice in the film, when Bill and Ted accidentally time travel to the future society to which they utter the franchise’s most memorable quote – ‘Be excellent to each other. Party on, dude,’ – and once again at the end where Rufus visits Bill and Ted for the last time. It’s a tune that perfectly mirrors the theme of hope that runs throughout the film. It’s easy to imagine a utopian society listening to this music. The rest of the musical composition is worth mentioning as well. It was done by David Newman, who has composed for over 100 different films, one of which was the 1997 animated film Anatastia, which received an Academy Award nomination.
The writing in the film does make for some effective comments, like Bill and Ted mistaking an Iron Maiden in the middle ages. Though a lot of the comedy is aimed to get easy laughs, some of the jokes dare to go a little deeper when the occasion called for it. As with anything from the eighties, some of the dialogue feels very dated; one particular moment is when the otherwise likeable characters drop a gay slur after hugging each other. However, this was a product of the times, and these examples are very few and far between.
Underneath the gags and misadventures of two stoner-esque metalheads, hope is the strongest feeling in this film. Despite a difficult task for the protagonists and overwhelming odds, it’s all going towards a goal that will ultimately benefit humanity on a grander level. It’s a nice fiction, that the challenges and problems of the modern era will eventually dissipate thanks to music, it’s almost something that sounds like it should have emerged from the hippie generation. Whether this film is a really deep exploration of the failures of the westernized education system, or just a comedy that happened to do very well, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is well worth a visit, for its hopeful undertone, for its music, or for a few laughs.
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