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Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 7 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 10 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Adventure | Comedy | Sci-fi
Written by:
Chris Matheson
Ed Solomon
Directed by: Stephen Herek
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 17, 1989
DVD: December 4, 2001
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG
Starring Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin, Robert V. Barron, Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, and Rod Loomis
Bill Preston and Ted Logan are two totally excellent dudes facing one most heinous history exam. With the help of Rufus an ultra-cool messenger in a time traveling phone booth, the triumphant twosome bag a bevy of historical heavy weights like the "Bodacious Philosopher Socrates, "One Very Excellent Barbarian" Genghis Khan, the "Short Dead Dude" Napoleon and Noah's Wife Joan of Arc to stage the most hysterical high school project ever. History's about to be rewritten by two guys who can't even spell. (MGM)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TV Guide Staff (Not credited)
Has an intangibly charming goofiness about it that is somehow endearing: here is a movie about teenagers that contains no excessive profanity, no drug references, and no explicit sexual activity.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Hal Hinson
If the director, Stephen Herek, has any talent for comedy, it's not visible here.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Everything Reeves has done since always has the whiff of "Ted" about it. Party on, dudes.
Read Full Review >Variety Staff (Not credited)
Reeves, with his beguilingly blank face and loose-limbed, happy-go-lucky physical vocabulary, and Winter, with his golden curls, gleefully good vibes and 'bodacious' vocabulary, propel this adventure as long as they can.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Vincent Canby
Meant to be funny, but it only swells the sinus passages. It is a painfully inept comedy.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Wow, dudes. Pu-trid. (1989 February 20, p.4D)
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 10.0 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Michael R. gave it a10:
freaking awesome.The people that give this movie negative reviews are 30-60 year olds that don't like movies us young adults watch.they grew up in a different generation what they find funny is not funny to me.
S DK gave it a10:
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is the Zen of the 20th century.
Pat C. gave it a10:
A damning indictment of many movie critics who are supposed to be able to evaluate films on criteria and presentation, not preferences for the types of characters portrayed. Even though the premise of this comedy is silly, it's a fully formed presentation with something for everyone. It properly observes that rock music has evolved to where it has the potential for transcendence, with it's modified cover of U2's finest guitar work. It also makes historical figures interesting to high-schoolers, no mean feat. This film is exemplary in its plot and character development, providing just enough information to make us comfortable with its absurd time-travel premise, and builds to it's climax, as the boys attempt to salvage their GPA, which is stunningly inspirational and life-affirming.
Eric P gave it a10:
One of my favourite films of all time, not just because it's sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but because it's also capable of making you smile when you do finally get one of the many hidden jokes. It might seem all dumb comedy, and indeed it's played that way, but the script's not always as dumb as the characters. Whilst they might be playing dumb, Reeves and especially Alex Winter actually manage to pull off pretty impressive feats of comic timing, without which the film would indeed have fallen very flat. If after all that, it's still not to your taste, bogus!
Vikram M. gave it a10:
I'm sorry, you can say I'm insane, you can say how I might be wrong on many levels, but this is a great time-travel comedy. It just made me laugh the whole time, this and Back to the Future are the greatest time-travel comedies ever. Keanu and Alex are hilariously funny in this role. Go see this and forget all about everything you heard and just laugh!
