Film Review - Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey (1989 and 1991)

I watched these as a double bill so I'm going to review them that way and that is the 2 Bill and Ted films which starred Keanu Reeves as Ted and Alex Winter as Bill.

In Excellent Adventure we learn that the two are failing their History class as they are spending their time on setting up their Band the Wyld Stallions until Rufus (George Carlin) offers them a phone booth that can take them through time to learn history from the people who helped shape it.

I had a lot of fun with Excellent Adventure, Reeves and Winter play off each other very well and the film is full of good laughs as well as having a fun story to help tie it all together plus it also has a nice upbeat feel to it which is pretty rare these days so I will give it a 3 out of 5.

In the 2nd film Bogus Journey the boys find themselves ambushed by bad robotic versions of themselves who then kill them which is where they meet Death himself (William Sadler) and after getting the better of him they join forces to rescue their girlfriends and the future world from the evil De Nomolous (Joss Ackland.)

I had some fun with this sequel but I can't say that I enjoyed it as much as I liked the first one, the first reason is that the story here isn't as interesting though it does have some fun moments, the second reason is that the comedy here isn't as funny though there were a couple of gags that made me laugh but not as much as I did in the first film and the third is that it feels a bit long in the tooth at the end.

However Sadler does such a good job here that it redeems this sequel from being one where you sit around bored while watching it and I also liked Ackland and Frank Welker who does a couple of voice roles here (okay he does the Dr Claw voice so sue me I love that voice okay.)

So all in all this sequel only gets a 2.5 out of 5 from me, it's fun in places but not as fun as the first film and hopefully the rumoured third film never eventuates as I think the guys act starts to wear thin a little while you're watching the second film.