There are multiple reasons why Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is such an entertaining movie even now, but the biggest is that Matheson, Solomon, and director Stephen Herek found the perfect Bill and Ted in Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, two young actors with just the right boyish energy.
An insanely effective no-brainer of a film, sparkling with a simple charm and energy rarely witnessed this side of illegal substances.
60
Time Out
Time Out
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.
50
TV Guide Magazine
TV Guide Magazine
Has an intangibly charming goofiness about it that is somehow endearing: here is a movie about teenagers that contains no excessive profanity, no drug references, and no explicit sexual activity.
50
Washington PostHal Hinson
Washington PostHal Hinson
If the director, Stephen Herek, has any talent for comedy, it's not visible here.
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Everything Reeves has done since always has the whiff of "Ted" about it. Party on, dudes.
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.
30
The New York TimesVincent Canby
The New York TimesVincent Canby
Meant to be funny, but it only swells the sinus passages. It is a painfully inept comedy.