Review - Bill and Ted

[jack]

Hey, that's a pretty good film. It seems like it shouldn't be, but it's enjoyable. And in fact, the time travel is more imaginative in some ways than in many apparently serious films: there are some confusions (eg. why do they have a deadline? can't they spend a month studying then go back in time? is it a paradox because their music enabled the society which invented the time machine?) but the whole "when we get out of this, we'll come back in time and give ourselves the key" is pretty fun, and normally bypassed.

The fourth wall is broken only right at the end, when Rufus looks at the camera and says "They get better than that," though he could have been talking to himself.

It's curious, because in many ways, Bill and Ted should be the antithesis of people I know: they're reasonably nice, and appreciate music, and somewhat misfit, yes, but they're intellectually lazy and unrealistic and fasionable. Why do we like them? Is it the uninhibitedness?

Comments

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

The sequel is pretty good too. Have you seen Wayne's World? Similarly appealing characters, despite being nothing like most of my friends!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yup. In fact, I saw the sequal first, somewhat confusingly[1] -- and rather ironically now I come to think of the time-travel premise ;)

[1] Partly from not knowing what was going on. Partly because the second was a bit more serious in plot if not tone.

Yes, I always think of Wayne's World and Bill and Ted as a pair, to the extent I sometimes get confused. And until the matrix I could never take Keanu seriously as any other sort of character (I know people will disagree with 'until' :))

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I mean, obviously I get on well with some people different from me. But B&T seem like the sort of people if I *met* we'd probably rub each other up the wrong way instantly...