Bill and Ted Go To Hell 1 (of 4)
Writer: Brian Joines
Boom! Studios, February 2016
Review by DG Stewart, 2 March 2016
American film actor Keanu Reeves made his fame in two quirky films produced by US film company Interscope, entitled, respectively, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989) and “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Adventure” (1991). The two titular characters, using now very dated youth slang which would be incomprehensible to teenagers in 2016, formed a guitar rock band called “Wyld Stallyns”, the philosophy of which would very improbably become the foundation of a future utopia. In the two movies, the characters become romantically involved with two medieval princesses, are killed by evil robot versions of themselves, and travel backwards in time to meet, amongst others, Socrates, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Joan of Arc. This is accomplished with a combination of silliness and beguiling naivety. The movies were, at the time of initial distribution, simultaneously each an instant cult classic, as well as commercial successes. It is fair to say that the movies now generate nostalgia amongst those who grew up in the 1990s, and are impossibly incomprehensible to anyone born after that.