Stephen Herek directs Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin in this sci-fi teen comedy where two loveable airheads travel through time in a phone booth to pass their history final.

This could have easily been the Mac & Me to Back To The Future’s E.T. A cheap cash-in, with ropey FX and a jobbing director. Instead it becomes something unimpeachably special through sheer innocence and joy. More apiece with the grungy / Generation X / lo-fi / end of history nineties. These aren’t goal orientated temporal racers. They do not disrupt reality or need to fix the timeline. They are relaxed pals who are “just dust in the wind, dude!” Zero footprint daytrippers. Apart from the casting coup of a pre-fame cusping Keanu, what Bill & Ted 1 has in spades is unfussy charm. Of course, every historical figure they borrow automatically trusts them and just goes along with it. Of course, Napoleon would be a buzzkill at ice cream parlours, bowling alleys and water parks. Of course, they’d all be arrested if you let them loose on a Californian mall. Bill & Ted is a celebration of just being nice and caring and open. They aren’t smartest guys in the time slip but they are the biggest hearts. That wins the day, gets the A grade and ultimately changes our future into being a utopia. A movie without villains, minimal action or romance. Instead a fun soundtrack, a hundred great quotes and Amy Stotch as Missy. “Be excellent to each other… And party on, dudes!”

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Perfect Double Bill: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

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