Bill and Ted are high school buddies starting a band. They are also about to fail their history class—which means Ted would be sent to military school—but receive help from Rufus, a traveller from a future where their band is the foundation for a perfect society. With the use of Rufus' time machine, Bill and Ted travel to various points in history, returning with important figures to help them complete their final history presentation.
This is extremely silly, good natured, superficial stuff; a lot depends on whether you take to Bill and Ted's unique lingo (which contorts surfers' expressions) and their gormless behaviour.
– Colette Maude,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
Reeves, with his beguilingly blank face and loose-limbed, happy-go-lucky physical vocabulary, and Winter, with his golden curls, gleefully good vibes and 'bodacious' vocabulary, propel this adventure as long as they can.
– Variety Staff,
Variety,
30 May 2007
rotten:
Make no mistake, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is not a satire of mindlessness; it's unabashed glorification of dumbness for dumbness' sake.
– Chris Willman,
Los Angeles Times,
22 Oct 2014
rotten:
Though its one-liners elicit the occasional chortle -- when Bill and Ted don medieval armor, there's an obligatory heavy-metal joke -- the film doesn't engage, because its heroes don't engage with the historical characters.