Saw Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (Thanks, Chris!) It was awesome. It had a weird feeling of being almost educational, breathlessly running through dates and names. Any one of the figures they encounter would be interesting to see entirely on their own. As is, they don't have time to ever really become more than just names and faces. How would Napoleon react to a bowling alley? I think he'd be overwhelmed and terrified. Instead of this approach however, the film has him slyly cheating on the score-sheet. This is perhaps not as true to my understanding of human psychology, but it is way way funnier and much more entertaining. There's a lot of (most) excellent gags just juxtaposing historical figures with absurd little mundane things, like having Abraham Lincoln grimly chew gum, or Sigmund Freud vacuum. I think Freud was actually my favorite. I loved his police interview ("Why do you claim you are Sigmund Freud?" "Why do you claim I am not?") and when he walks up holding a corn dog (because of course.)
Delightful and anarchic, it even covers its own plot holes with its near-magical time-travel mechanics. I sort of sourly thought "Who's manning the light-board?" during their final performance, but then I remembered "Oh, yeah. Probably they are." Its final conclusion, that 80s rock will save the world is hilarious, fitting, and adorable. I kind of wish they'd visited Joan of Arc when she was still a peasant girl, implying perhaps that they were the saints which inspired her but this would be a bit too pat (also, she'd be twelve according to wiki.) I also wish that there'd been a reference to The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Dreyer, but it would have been jarring and would have made no sense whatsoever (I just want to be congratulated for having seen that film.) I was dryly amused at the lack of raping Genghis did.
A delightful film. A little light on actual insight into anything, but not every movie has to be a lesson. This film is indeed a most excellent film.
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