Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

1991's BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY continues the twentieth century exploits of Bill Preston and Ted Logan on their way to saving the world/creating a utopian society in the twenty-seventh.  Of course, not without complications and attempts to stop them.  In their original adventure, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) learned of their ultimate roles in history shaping and had to travel through time to round up historical figures who would help them pass their high school History course.  Years later, the boys (and their fifteenth century girlfriends) continue to play in their terrible band, Wyld Stallions.  While the ladies are already accomplished musicians, B & T still don't know how to play their instruments.  The all important Battle of the Bands competition is coming up.  What will our heroes do?

But there are bigger problems.  The evil Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), the former gym teacher of Bill and Ted's mentor Rufus (George Carlin), has sent two evil robot replicas of the guys from the future to stop that eventual world saving music from happening.  And they succeed....by killing them.  Yes, this BOGUS JOURNEY gets a bit darker than BILL & TED'S BIG ADVENTURE, which was a fairly good natured romp.  I have to give credit to screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon for taking some unexpected paths this time out.  Bill and Ted find themselves in both Heaven and Hell, the latter of which includes some fairly disturbing imagery.  Almost as if Tim Burton was directing.  But Pete Hewitt was behind the bullhorn and handles both the eerie and silly equally well.  There is more silliness than eeriness, of course, but the entire film surprisingly goes to town with the evil Bill & Ted's destructive and mean-spirited rampage.  We are laughing at them (most of the time) while we're hissing.

The most inspired bit in BILL & TED's BOGUS JOURNEY is the inclusion of the Grim Reaper (William Sadler), who informs our charges that in order to escape the afterlife they have to beat him in a game of their choice.  Which actually turns into several popular board games familiar to anyone who grew up in the '70s and '80s. Sadler has fun with the part, and got the biggest laugh in the hardware store scene.   It's a quick, small moment; these type were the funniest for me.  The big moments (include the finale) run a bit hot and cold. 

Winter and Reeves are still fun, even if their act gets a bit thin.  This second film in the franchise is ultimately a bit iffy, maybe too much at times.  As if Hewitt was trying his damndest to outdo the predecessor.  Sequels tend to do that.  Time tends not to be kind to such efforts, but unsurprisingly a sizable cult does exist for this movie.  I do have to give the film credit for a few obscure film references and the licks of Steve Vai, dubbing those Wyld Stallions.