Entertainment
Keanu Reeves’ Sci-Fi Stoner Comedy Is Secretly The Best Sequel Ever
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure proved to be a breakout smash, appealing to sci-fi fans with its time-traveling plot and appealing to general audiences with its affable stoner comedy. The movie (the first big role for former John Wick icon Keanu Reeves) soon got a sequel, one that broke all the rules and subverted all of our expectations. You can now stream this underrated film for free on Tubi and discover for yourself why Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) might secretly be the best sequel ever made.
The premise of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is that the titular duo are inexplicably responsible for creating a future utopia, but a bad guy who wants to stop the party sends robot duplicates to kill our heroes in the present day. These bad bots actually succeed, throwing Bill and Ted to their doom before these would-be rock stars can win a local Battle of the Bands. But these two meatheads won’t let a little thing like death keep them down, and once they run into a new frenemy in the afterlife, they realize that their bogus journey is just beginning.
Sci-Fi’s Slacker Dream Team Returns
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey has a tight cast of excellent performers, including George Carlin (best known outside this franchise for Dogma) as a groovy mentor from the day after tomorrow. The Grim Reaper is played to hilarious perfection, by William Sadler (best known for Shawshank Redemption), while Alex Winter (best known Adulthood) plays one half of the titular time-trippers. The other is played by Keanu Reeves, who transformed the notoriety of this franchise into headlining roles in action masterpieces like The Matrix and John Wick.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey wasn’t so bogus for audiences: against a budget of $20 million, this film earned $38 million. This was less than the original movie, and Bogus Journey was considered a minor failure until it earned a cult following on home video and streaming. That cult following helped this movie get a sequel, and 2020 (the pandemic? Talk about a bogus journey!) saw the release of the long-awaited Bill and Ted Face the Music.
Declared DOA By The Critics
When Bill& Ted’s Bogus Journey came out, many reviewers decided this sequel was totally heinous. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 56 percent rating, with critics acknowledging that this follow-up film had the same sense of humor as the groundbreaking first film and the same cast giving the script everything they had. They just felt like this second trip to the well delivered diminished returns compared to their original romp through time and space.
However, the movie impressed certain reviewers more than others, including legendary film critic Roger Ebert. In his review, Ebert said that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is “the kind of movie where you start out snickering in spite of yourself, and end up actually admiring the originality that went into creating this hallucinatory slapstick.” This is a solid take, and the movie is filled with so many deliciously stupid punchlines that it’s easy to forget how smart the setup to these jokes really is.
A Sequel That Raises The Stakes
I’ll actually go one better than the late, great Ebert and say that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is secretly the best sequel ever made. It would have been insanely easy to just give us a lame retread of the first film, with our not-so-dynamic duo traveling to more time periods and teaming up with more historical figures. Instead, the sequel zigs wherever you expect it to zag, sending our boys to Heaven and Hell in sequences that further our understanding of these characters in unexpectedly complex ways.
It helps that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey adds fun new characters, including both the evil robots and the Grim Reaper. William Sadler is always game for genre work, and he turns his Reaper into the best kind of comic figure: a man who takes himself way too seriously. Watching him get his butt kicked in board games is hilarious, and by the end of the movie, he proves himself to be the ultimate third wheel of Wild Stallyns, a band that might just save the world.
A Hauntingly Good Sequel
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey will appeal to sci-fi fans looking for something more lighthearted to watch, but it also has undeniable mass appeal thanks to its witty writing, rapid-fire jokes, and affable cast. It’s the kind of movie you can put on at a party, and people can vibe out with between conversations. But it’s also the kind of movie you can watch on your own to enjoy its surprising depth, sophistication, and craft.
Will you agree that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is the best sequel ever made, or would you like to send this ‘90s classic on a one-way trip to the past? The only way to find out is to stream this quirky comedy for free on Tubi. If nothing else, this is the perfect way to see how future action icon Keanu Reeves got his start!
