Movie: "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey"
Year: 1991
Rated: PG
Genre: Comedy
Directed by: Peter Hewitt
Writing credits: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon

Reviewer: 10,000 Volt Ghost
Posted: 4/18/2011

Plot: The sequel to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure continues on the story legend of Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted "Theodore" Logan... better known as Wyld Stallyns!!!

Review: A villain by the name of De Nomolos interrupts a class in the future being taught by Rufus. George Carlin is in the movie, but to be fair, it's really more like a cameo than anything else. Not content with the current peaceful society, De Nomolos wants to kill the people responsible for it - our heroes Bill & Ted. He creates two evil robot versions of Bill & Ted and then sends them past to the past (1991) to kill and replace B&T right before the Wyld Stallyns play the battle of the bands, thus altering the future forever. The evil robot Bill & Ted travel back in time and convince the real Bill & Ted that they're really themselves from the future.

The evil robots then kill B&T and start to take over their lives by ruining their relationships with their girlfriends / fellow bandmates. Meanwhile, Death himself shows up to take the souls of recently deceased Bill & Ted. They're able to "Melvin" Death and then hightail it back to their hometown of San Dimas to take back their destiny. They wind up taking possession of Ted's dad at the police station to try and warn them of the bad robot impostors. Things don't go over so smoothly, but its pretty funny watching Ted's dad and another officer talk like them. The duo then try their luck with at a séance which ends up sending them to hell.

I've never been to hell, but I now know falling there from San Dimas, CA takes a very, very, very, very long time, because they end up free falling through a black void for a solid minute or two of movie time. When they finally get to the inferno, Satan ends up sending them to their own personal hells. Realizing they have only way out, they call upon Death to challenge him so they can be brought back to life.

This series of battles is one of the highlights of the movie for me. It was great at the time it came out, and after re-watching Bogus Journey, it really makes me miss the transitional cusp between the 1980's and the 1990's.

After losing to them in the hilarious battles, Death is at Bill & Ted's command and guides them to heaven. Upon arriving at the Pearly gates we find out that Bret Michaels gave us the meaning of life... yep. Once in heaven, God (yeah, THE GOD) shows them to a being named Station who is the most intelligent scientist in the universe. Together with Station and Death, the Stallyns make even better more powerful robot versions of themselves - the Good Robot Us'es. Aside from the fact the good robots look like they were assembled from various erector set parts and some broken down jalopies, they work just fine.

The good guys get to the battle of the bands just in the nick of time to confront the Evyl (see what I did there) Stallyns by sending the good robots in to attack them. When I was re-watching this the other day, the fight came as a real shocker. Both good robots rush the bad ones and Mortal Kombat uppercut the heads of the evil robots off. Then the evil robots get explosive chest punched by the good robots. In the early 90's, fighting moves like that were more commonplace than I remembered. Either way, it was badass as hell.

The movie does conclude with Bill & Ted finally getting good at playing with Bill rocking a ZZ Top beard while Ted gets a sweet looking Spaniard goatee. They save the day from the nefarious De Nomolos, renew their relationship with their girlfriends, have some kids, and even Death and Station join their band. A message of peace is broadcast to the entire world and the guys go on a planetary tour thus assuring their legendary place in history.

Reasons to watch this movie:

-Its darker than the original.
-This film expands on the mythos behind Wyld Stallyns.
-Sweet Steve Vai air guitars.
-The set designs are really great.
-A third movie has been confirmed, so you need to get caught up.

I'll leave you with this classic scene from the movie:

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)