BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY is a film starring Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, and William Sadler, with George Carlin.
Two Keanu Reeves movies in one week (the other being POINT BREAK)! But first, let me salvage my reputation as a Serious Film Guy. I never saw BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, but now I would like to. (That didn't help.) How about this? Lyndol and I *needed* to see film, it was too daunting to drive all the way to the art-film district (20 miles) and we didn't want to see anything else in the 'burbs (that we hadn't already seen), such as PROBLEM CHILD 2 or REGARDING HENRY. But mostly Lyndol's developed this thing for Reeves in the last week. Really, I didn't have a choice, I was just following orders.
Okay, the review (which I promise will not tax anyone's attention span):
BILL AND TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY is a totally silly flick, but it is (if I have a handle on the jargon) totally non-heinous. In fact, it's rather charming and sweet. And some of it is very funny. There's a certain amount of exposition that slows down the opening 15 minutes or so, and a lot of references to the previous, aforementioned EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, some of which were obviously lost on me and delightful to most of the audience.
Winter reminds me of Sean Penn's benevolent twin and Reeves may be a little long in the tooth for the role now, but together they are energetic, cheerful, well-intentioned, and unsinkable. They confront death, the devil, hell, heaven, the smartest being in the universe, and God (who is not a rich Republican in a long beard). They cover a lot of territory and never so much as dent their air guitars.
However, they are in danger of losing their movie to William Sadler, who plays the Grim Reaper with a fine, absurdist sense of anything goes. He and the boys do a particularly satisfying send-up of Bergman's chess-playing Death. It's quite intellectual. Really.
So, unless you're terminally serious, you'll have a good time. However, with this much fluff, I can't recommend you pay more than cheap matinee prices.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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