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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

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Watch Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey has the same stars -- and cheerfully wacky sense of humor -- as its predecessor, but they prove a far less effective combination the second time around.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Peter Hewitt

Keanu Reeves

Alex Winter

William Sadler

Grim Reaper

Joss Ackland

Ms. Wardroe

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More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, bill and ted's bogus journey.

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There were parts of "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" I probably didn't understand, but that's all right, because there were even more parts that Bill and Ted didn't understand. This is a movie that thrives on the dense-witted idiocy of its characters, two teenage dudes who go on amazing journeys through time and space with only the dimmest perception that they are not still playing video games. I missed the enormously popular movie that introduced these characters, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," and felt myself blessed at the time. But now I'm not so sure. Their "Bogus Journey" is a riot of visual invention and weird humor that works on its chosen sub-moronic level, and on several others as well, including some fairly sophisticated ones. It's 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. The movie begins far in the future, where students at Bill & Ted's University have the opportunity to chat personally with Thomas Edison and Beethoven, and to study such artistic classics as the " Star Trek " TV series. An evil overlord of time, named De Nomolos and played by that gravel-voiced, white-haired villain Joss Ackland , vows to rewrite history by destroying Bill and Ted (played as before by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves ). He has invented robots that look and act exactly like the two heroes, and are just as dumb, and he sends them rocketing back through time in a telephone booth. Bill and Ted are meanwhile trying to win a rock band contest with their own group, the Wyld Stallyons, which includes a couple of girl musicians they picked up in the 15th century. Startled by the appearance of their robot-doubles, they commence their own journeys through time and space in a desperate attempt to destroy them, save themselves, preserve the book of history, stay cool, and meet cute chicks. The funniest thing that happens to them is their showdown with the Grim Reaper ( William Sadler ), who looks just as he does in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal." In that film (as most of the audience for this one will probably not know), Death played chess with a medieval knight, with the knight's soul at stake. This time the dudes challenge the Reaper to a pocket video game, and beat him, even after he tries to weasel out with an offer of best of three. Death, having lost, has to accompany Bill and Ted on their journey and do what they tell him, and this leads to some of the funniest moments I have seen in any movie in a long time, including one where the Reaper does a little comparison shopping for scythes at the hardware store. One of the stops on the bogus journey is Heaven, created with great imagination and a lot of light and echoing sound effects and a most peculiar conversation with the Deity. Bill ands Ted handle this summit meeting, as they handle everything else in the film, like two dudes for whom "Pee Wee's Playhouse" would be too slow and intellectual. All of the actors (including George Carlin , who turns up in an important supporting role) have a lot of fun with this material, and it turns into more delicate fun, based on more subtle timing, than you might imagine. Many of Sadler's laughs as the Grim Reaper come from simple physical cringing, as he conveys his embarrassment and lost dignity.

Of Bill and Ted, I can say that I have not seen Alex Winter much before (he was in " Rosalie Goes Shopping "), but I have seen Keanu Reeves in vastly different roles (the FBI man in the current "Point Break," for example), and am a little astonished by the range of these performances. Like Sean Penn , who immortalized the word "awesome" in a Bill & Ted-like performance in " Fast Times at Ridgemont High ," he brings more artistry to this cretinous role than might at first meet the eye. Who is the movie intended for? Your basic "Bill & Ted" audience, for starters -- upward-bound young moviegoers looking for something one notch more challenging than " Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ." But also for lovers of fantasy, whimsy, and fanciful special effects. This movie is light as a feather and thin as ice in spring, but what it does, it does very nicely.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

George Carlin as Rufus

Keanu Reeves as Ted

William Sadler as Grim Reaper

Alex Winter as Bill

Joss Ackland as De Nomolos

• Chris Matheson
• David Newman

Directed by

• Peter Hewitt

Produced by

• Scott Kroopf
• David Finfer

Photographed by

• Oliver Wood

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, peter hewitt, keanu reeves, alex winter, william sadler, tim alexander, technical specs.

Bill and Ted are killed by their evil futuristic robot twins and must travel through hell and heaven to enact their revenge.

Richard Yuricich

Amy Stock-poynton

Larry lalonde, jeff miller, katharyn miller, george carlin.

William Shatner

Pasquale buffolino.

Joss Ackland

Ed cambridge, eleni kelakos, les claypool, david carrera, tanya newbould, michael chambers, chris matheson, brendan ryan, anthony schmidt, bruno falcon, valerie spencer, sarah trigger, annette azcuy, roy brocksmith, carol rosenthal, dana stevens, pat mcnamara, william thorne, chelcie ross, robert noble, janice alexander, brett allen, caroline allen, willy allen, kevin allison, rene alzuro, dale e. anderson, louette arrowsmith, kate axelrod, richard baily, russ ballard, gregg barbanell, william d barber, david bartholomew, robin beauchesne, barry bedig, carol bentley, kim berkner, les bernstein, tamu blackwell, edward t breathitt, kenneth h brilliant, james brown, betty burkhart, gary burritt, chris a butler, david p calvillo, yancy calzada, gene s cantamessa, steve cantamessa, tim caprarelli, christopher carlson, david caruthers, marilyn d chaney, todd a chaney, bill clevenger, stan cockerell, clarke coleman, robert consing, john convertino, michael coo, martin corralez, gilbert m correa, robert cort, scott m cort, ron cotterell, jimmy crawford, john cregar, peter t crosman, peg cummings, kathi danielson, valerie davidson, dane a. davis, sandy de crescent, suzanne degrandis, catherine demeis, robert deschane, patsy deshields, john desjardin, mark christopher donovan, antoine durr, russell eaton, donna ekholdt, mike elizalde, eurlyne epper, peter evangelatos, david finfer, arnold finkelstein, frank fleshman, steve fontano, kurt n forshager, karyn foster, marie france, nicola freegard, david freund, gerald gadette, rick galinson, elise garcia, vince garcia, melinda garey, scott garrett, jerry gaskill, tony gaudioz, leslie gerard, nerses gezalyan, giacomo ghiazza, scott giegler, rocco gioffre, david glazer, joseph goldstone, henry gonzales, amanda goodpaster, scott goodrich, marita grabiak, jered green, bruce greenfield, spencer gross, bonnie grossblatt, rhonda gunner, craig haagensen, hilbert hakim, james halty, tom hammond, milton hangum, tabby hanson, barbara harris, thomas e hayes, robert heine, donald g helderle, richard o helmer, mark herman, mecki heussen, joann hicks, mildred hill, david hofflich, richard hollander, mark hotchkiss, steve howard, tommy hubbard, mentor huebner, john hussein, michele imperato-stabile, louis infante, mark r jennings, joanna jiminez, robert k johnson, frank j keever, beth evin klein, sarah e. knowles, peter konig, richie kotzen, greg kozikowski, scott kroopf, dan krueger, brian kufberg, steve kurland, jeff kushon, t sano kwong, gemma lamana, gregg landaker, cara latzel, lance laurienzo, paul lazebnik, clare leavenworth, robert leveen, paul a levin, larry liddell, roger w. lifsey, lisa linder, peter lloyd, roland walter loew, brian lucas, neil a machlis, milton mangum, alan g markowitz, miscellaneous notes.

Released in United States Summer July 19, 1991

Released in United States on Video January 9, 1992

Feature directorial debut for Pete Hewitt.

Began shooting January 7, 1991.

Completed shooting April 1, 1991.

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Produced by, released by, bill & ted's bogus journey (1991), directed by peter hewitt.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

• Credits 
• Trailers  [1]
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All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders and/or producers/distributors.

• Amy Stock-Poynton

• Annette Azcuy
• Sarah Trigger

• See all credits
• "A real summer pleasure (...) The new film is imaginative, affectionate and sharply assembled"  Dave Kehr : Chicago Tribune
• "It's 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 (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"  Roger Ebert : rogerebert.com
• "A most excellent sequel, funnier and livelier than the original"  Desson Thomson : The Washington Post
• "Perhaps even smarter than the original as it expands the potential for the surreal and ties up all the loose ends, managing, quite remarkably, to give its own pointlessness a purpose (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"  Lloyd Bradley : Empire
• "This sequel lacks the inspired stupidity of the original but it is still a hoot, especially in the knowing nods to Ingmar Bergman's classic 'The Seventh Seal' (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"  John Ferguson : Radio Times

All copyrighted material (movie posters, DVD covers, stills, trailers) and trademarks belong to their respective producers and/or distributors.

User history

BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY

A tyrant from the future creates evil android doubles of Bill and Ted and sends them back to eliminate the originals.

13 Excellent Facts About Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

By roger cormier | jul 19, 2016.

Writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon invented the characters William "Bill" S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan way back in 1983 , while performing improv with their UCLA classmates. Two years after Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure hit theaters in 1989, Matheson and Solomon decided to put their creations in front of brand new hurdles and challenges in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey , a sequel that some regard as the superior movie of the two. In the latter, our heroes are murdered by their evil robot selves from the future and must go through hell and heaven to get their vengeance. Here are some facts about the film, which was released 25 years ago today.

1. ORION PICTURES INITIALLY INSISTED ON BILL AND TED KIDNAPPING CHARACTERS FROM FAMOUS BOOKS.

While Matheson and Solomon wanted to write about Bill and Ted dying and going to hell, the studio wanted the leads to enter famous works of literature to pass an English test. "The literature idea sounds different from time travel," Solomon said , "but it ends up being the same thing: Bill and Ted go into historical settings and meet famous characters, except now the characters are fictional." The two tried to write that version before telling Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter their initial idea, which the actors preferred. Reeves and Winter told the studio that Matheson and Solomon's movie was the one they wanted to make.

2. IT WAS PETER HEWITT'S FEATURE DIRECTORIAL DEBUT.

Despite never having directed a feature film, British director Peter Hewitt beat out 50 other directors for the chance to replace Excellent Adventure director Stephen Herek (who directed 1991's Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead instead). "To this day I don’t know why," Hewitt admitted in a 1992 interview . "I think I never imagined they’d consider me so I decided to say exactly what I thought about their script ideas: what I didn’t like and would want to change as much as what I wanted left in to build on. Perhaps they admired my honesty and the fact I wasn’t scared to speak my mind."

Though he had never directed a feature film, Hewitt had plenty of veteran help. Special effects supervisor Richard Yuricich ( Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Blade Runner ) teamed up with Kevin Yagher, who designed the Chucky doll in Child’s Play (1988) and who was also responsible for designing and applying make-up in three of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, to help Hewitt execute Matheson and Solomon's vision.

3. PRODUCTION WAS DELAYED TO ACCOMMODATE KEANU REEVES' BUSY SCHEDULE.

Orion wanted the film to be released in the summer of 1991, but the 10-week shoot had to be delayed until January 7, 1991. Reeves couldn't make it until then because he was working on My Own Private Idaho (1991). They stuck to the 10-week schedule by editing the movie as they went along, shooting five days a week and editing on Saturdays.

4. THE ORIGINAL TITLE WAS BILL & TED GO TO HELL , WHICH POSED A MARKETING PROBLEM.

Producer Scott Kroopf explained to The New York Times why they ultimately decided against using a title with the word 'hell' in it: "The problem was—and it was a real one—we couldn't advertise on TV until after 9 o'clock."

5. THE WRITERS FOUND THEIR WAY INTO THE FILM.

Solomon (with glasses) and Matheson (white shirt) appear as New Agers at Missy's seance. The Nomolos in the character name of the evil Chuck De Nomolos is Solomon spelled backwards.

6. THEY KNEW THEY WERE PARODYING INGMAR BERGMAN AND THE SEVENTH SEAL .

"The biggest set piece in the movie is that in order to get back to life, Bill and Ted have to play Death in games," Kroopf explained . "And the games they play are Battleship , Clue , Twister . So your life is on the line; you're playing with Death, but you're playing games that Bill and Ted know how to play. This is a clear parody of Bergman."

7. WILLIAM SADLER HELPED WITH SOME OF THE LINES.

"I think I had more fun doing Bill and Ted than I’ve ever had making anything I’ve ever shot," William Sadler, who played the Grim Reaper, said in 2015 . "It was, once I came up with the Czechoslovakian accent and had the funny make-up done, and the idea that he’s almost effeminate. He starts off as a scary dude and almost immediately it all unravels and he becomes this kind of insecure doofus who all he really wants is for them to like him. At the end it was so sweet. I also got to be creative, I wrote the Reaper Rap. I kept having ideas, like when he goes by—I said to Peter Hewitt the director, 'Wouldn’t it be great if he walks past somebody who’s smoking and says ‘See you real soon’ as he goes by, and the person who’s smoking goes ah and puts it out?’ Peter liked the idea and said bring the camera over here, that’s Peter Hewitt as the smoker. We didn’t have an actor to play it, the idea happened on the set, while we were shooting other stuff."

8. THERE WERE STAR TREK CONNECTIONS.

Bill & Ted University was at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, California. It was later used for Starfleet Academy in Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001). Bill & Ted give Death a melvin at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park near Agua Dulce Springs. It was shot there because shooting the scene in Utah was too expensive. When Hewitt first came across the jagged rock at Vasquez he turned to his first assistant director and said , "Isn’t this the alien planet in every Star Trek episode?" Hewitt rented a VHS of the "Arena" episode from the original series, froze the shot, and worked out the exact place for the crew to place the camera.

9. THERE WAS A CIRCULAR MOTIF THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE.

Production designer David L. Snyder and Hewitt worked it out so that 25 sets were built on three soundstages and other outside locations, each with circular shapes . "I chose a through-line of curves and circles in a desperate need to tie it all up stylistically," Hewitt explained . "Each place is instantly recognizable, but not stereotypically otherworldly. Otherwise Bill and Ted would have had to have said at some stage, ‘Where are we?,’ as they aren’t the smartest guys in the world."

10. AN ALTERNATE ENDING INVOLVING A CAR CHASE BETWEEN BILL AND TED AND THEIR BIGGEST FEARS WAS CUT.

Alex Winter said it was "insanely funny." It was storyboarded . To get rid of their reanimated "Personal Hells," Bill gives his Granny a kiss on the cheek, Ted calls his brother and apologizes for stealing his Easter candy, and both of them are nice to Colonel Oats.

In the original ending, Bill and Ted brought themselves back from the future every minute for 10 years to make full armies of themselves. Preview audiences didn't like it , and a new ending was shot over 10 days.

11. THE DIRECTOR'S CUT WAS MUCH DARKER.

Hewitt claimed the first cut of Bogus Journey was much darker . "That’s a definite British trait," he added. "The humor was black comedy almost. The Evil Us’s were really evil! I went for it and had them running riot doing despicable things. But test screen audiences couldn’t take it ... My original cut would have played well in Britain."

12. JOSS ACKLAND REGRETS BEING IN IT.

Joss Ackland played Chuck De Nomolos. He said that many of the roles in his 50-plus-year acting career were taken just for the money or to settle bets . "I do an awful lot of crap, but if it's not immoral, I don't mind," he explained. "I'm a workaholic." As for Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey ? "I can't tell you how embarrassing that was," he told BBC News .

13. ALEX WINTER SAID A THIRD MOVIE IS COMING SOON.

In April 2016, Winter said that a third film was imminent—and that both he and Reeves would be reprising their roles: “We have a script, we have a director, we have a studio—we’re just trying to nail down a start date.”

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Film / Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

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The popularity of the first Bill & Ted film prompted Nelson and Orion to release a sequel two years later. Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), a rebel from Rufus's utopian future, wants to replace it with a militaristic Crapsack World . He plans to accomplish this by sending Evil Robot duplicates into the past, where they will kill the boys, then deliver a disparaging speech worldwide at a "Battle of the Bands" concert contest and destroy Wyld Stallyns' reputation forever.

With a minimum amount of effort, the robots succeed in killing off the two title characters. However, their spirits refuse to go quietly into the good night and face off against the Grim Reaper ( William Sadler ). While the evil robots make time with the guys' princess babes, the ghosts of Bill and Ted need to find a way to resurrect themselves, defeat the evil robot "usses" and stop Chuck De Nomolos. To do so, they must go through Heaven and Hell (literally, plus Kirk's Rock ) to face their personal demons and gather allies to their cause.

The second movie features the following totally metal tropes:

• Achievements in Ignorance : It's indicated in the ending montage that Death somehow won the Indy 500. On foot. ("I didn't know I could run that fast.")
• All Part of the Show : Everyone not directly involved thinks that the climactic battle is just a really elaborate stage show.
• And That's Terrible : Bill and Ted have to mug some people in Heaven, and they admit it was not a good thing.
• Artistic License – Space : The picture that accompanies the "Wyld Stallyns to Play Mars" has a picture of Jupiter's moon Io.
• Artistic License – Sports : The aforementioned Grim Reaper winning the Indy 500 on foot .
• Back from the Dead : Evil Robot Bill & Ted kill the originals, but they eventually come back to life after beating Death in a number of board games .
• Badass Creed : De Nomolos and his followers have a pretty impressive villainous one: "What is the fuel?" " FEAR! " "What is the engine?" " DISCIPLINE! " "What is the ideal?" " ORDER! " "And how do we achieve it?" " DEATH TO BILL AND TED! "
• Big Red Devil : The duo flag the attention of a gigantic one in Hell who sends them to live their own personal Hells.
• Bound and Gagged : The princesses by the Evil Robot Bill & Ted near the end, along with Unwilling Suspension since they're goign to drop them from the rafters after the show ends.
• Burger Fool : Off-screen, Bill and Ted work for "Pretzels and Cheese" in order to support the band.
• Butt-Monkey : Death of all people. He is repeatedly humiliated, first when Bill and Ted wedgie him to escape. Then he undergoes a series of embarrassing defeats at board games, is forced to appear before God in drag, suffers repeated comedic injuries on Earth, and finally he can't even catch a break when he becomes part of the band that saves the world. His solo albums fail spectacularly, and was also part of a lip-sync scandal. At least he won the Indianapolis 500 .
• The time machine arrives outside the Circle K, as in the first film, though without any particular reason this time (indeed, it's a different Circle K).
• Bill and Ted initially assume that the robots are future versions of themselves, referencing when they crossed paths with themselves in the first film.
• After Missy divorces Bill's father and marries Ted's, Bill can't think of anything to say, so he just repeats his Running Gag "Shut up, Ted" line from the first movie.
• Bill calls the evil robots dickweeds for killing them, referencing when Bill called a knight a "medieval dickweed" for apparently killing Ted.
• When Bill and Ted try to plead for their lives and tell the evil robots that they love them, the robots call them "fags," a callback to the first film, when Bill and Ted embrace, then call each other "fag."
• The boys again quote metal lyrics when asked to say something profound.
• When the camera pans down from the Builder's Emporium sign, you can see a sign further down for Oshman's Sporting Goods- the store that Genghis Khan "totally ravaged" at the mall in the first movie.
• The climax is again resolved by planning to go back in time to set things up after the climax is resolved.
• The Cameo : A number of musicians have cameos, including the members of Primus as themselves, "Big" Jim Martin of Faith No More playing himself Etc.  referred to as "Sir James Martin of the Faith No More Spiritual and Theological centre" , and bluesman Taj Mahal as heaven's gatekeeper.
• Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven : When Bill, Ted, and Death go to heaven to meet the universe's greatest inventor, they find Confucius , Benjamin Franklin , Albert Einstein , and George Washington playing charades with Station. Someone can also be heard asking " Marilyn " how she got into show business.
• Chess with Death : Parodied by having Bill and Ted best Death in a number of modern party and board games until he finally admits defeat.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives : When made to believe that the princesses have broken up with them, Bill describes the situation as "non-non-heinous", i.e., heinous. He later calls his personal hell "non-non-non-non-heinous" which, yes, still adds up to heinous.
• Counter Zany : "How do we defeat evil robot usses?" "By building good robot usses to fight them!"
• Covers Always Lie : Parodied when Bill and Ted complain that rock albums inaccurately portrayed Hell. "We got totally lied to by our album covers, man."
• Creation Sequence : Station assembles the Good Robot Usses in the back of a moving van.
• The credits describe the crew as "awesome", "bodacious", etc.
• Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon appear as the two male members of the seance.
• Director Peter Hewitt appears as the smoker at the hardware shop whom Death talks to.
• Crystal Spires and Togas : Subverted, as we learn that not everyone is happy to live in a future founded by a pair of hard rockers.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : The "Good Robot Usses" created by Station own the "Bad Robot Usses" created by Chuck De Nomolos. They uppercut their heads off their bodies, and a follow-up punch to the torso causes them to explode. Surprisingly the Bad Robot Usses are perfectly ok with this. Evil Ted: Dude, we may have met our match! Evil Bill: Kudos to you, good human usses!
• Darker and Edgier : As is evident by the titles. Whilst Excellent Adventure is a feel-good romp, Bogus Journey has the title characters a) facing robot terrorists from the future and b) dying and going to hell , even if it is still played for laughs and they get better eventually.
• Death Is Gray : After Bill and Ted are thrown off a cliff by their evil robot twins, they appear as ghosts with gray skin.
• Defeat Means Friendship : After having lost every game to Bill and Ted, Death becomes their ally who also has to obey their orders.
• Despite having a number of lines in the first film, Bill's dad only has a single reaction shot in which he looks forlornly at Missy.
• Ted's little brother Deacon had a substantial sideplot in the first film, but never shows up in the sequel. He's acknowledged only in Ted's personal Hell, when Ted steals an Easter basket with Deacon's name on it.
• Bill & Ted in between the time they die and go to Hell. At times you can tell they're just wearing grey paint and greyscale versions of their clothing.
• Also with Colonel Oats in hell.
• It turns out that Death is actually a pretty nice guy once you get to know him, and the climax of the movie has him joining Bill and Ted's band.
• Bill and Ted also have a rather casual conversation with God just before returning to the living world.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu? : When Bill & Ted are cast into an underground maze of doors containing their worst fears by the Devil, Ted is unimpressed by the big guy's taunts... The Devil: Choose your eternity! (evil laugh) Dead Ted: Choose your own, you FAG !! The Devil: (angry roar) (Ted is sent flying into a wall)
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? : "I can't believe we Melvined Death!" (high five)
• Do Not Adjust Your Set : De Nomolos commandeers the world's televisions to deliver his evil speech.
• Don't Fear the Reaper : Bad attitude? Yes! Evil? No! Combines with Waxing Lyrical after the two beat Death and he has to lead them to Heaven. Dead Bill: Hey, Ted — Don't Fear the Reaper ! Death: I heard that!
• Drill Sergeant Nasty : Colonel Oats, the head and namesake of Oats Military Academy where Ted's dad is threatening to send him in the first movie. He's only mentioned in the first film; we first meet him in the sequel at a party and he's still offering a place for Ted at the academy . However, when the duo goes to hell, the first punishment they go through is being at military school where he's this trope in full force and demands that they "get down and give me infinity". Then again, they are in HELL...
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe : Mocked when Bill and Ted ask God for help in protecting their girlfriends, and are sent to meet the smartest man in the universe... who turns out to be two squat, large-nosed Martians. Or one big one, depending... Death: Did you assume that the most brilliant scientist in the entire universe would be from Earth ?
• Embarrassing First Name : At the end of the film, De Nomolos' first name is revealed as "Chuck". Which isn't really that bad a name, unless you're trying to be an Evil Overlord .
• Evil Knockoff : The duo's evil robot duplicates from the future.
• Evil Mentor : Subverted with De Nomolos, although the viewers are meant to think he was this to Rufus for most of the film. Rufus calls him "my old teacher" in the opening scene and the villain responds by calling him "my favorite pupil." Rufus later explains at the end of the film that De Nomolos was actually his old gym teacher.
• Evil Wears Black : De Nomolos and his soldiers all wear black.
• Exact Words : Just before using the Good Robot Usses to destroy the Evil Robot Usses, the real Bill & Ted say to the ERU's "Catch YOU later Bill and Ted!" The GRU's knock the ERU's heads off, and Bill and Ted catch them a few moments later.
• Exposed Extraterrestrials : Station. He even provides the page image. His nudity gets Lampshaded when the boys comment on his butt.
• Faint in Shock : The princesses reaction when Evil Bill & Ted reveal that they're robots.
• Famous, Famous, Fictional : Rufus introduces some guest speakers from the past to his students: Johann Sebastian Bach , Jim Martin and Ria Paschelle, a woman from the 23rd century who invented the statiophonicoxygeneticamplifiagraphiphonideliverberator.
• Fantastic Time Management : How Bill and Ted actually end up learning to play.
• Field Trip to the Past : Literally, after introducing guest speakers from the past, Rufus reminds the class about an upcoming field trip to Babylonia.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell : This is how hell appears when they first arrive: breaking rocks eternally under the watchful eye of Satan , as well as a chamber filled with many forms of Ironic Hell .
• Flowery Insults : Colonel Oats throws some fairly bizarre ones at them in hell. "You petty, base, bully-bullocked bugger billies!" "You're not strong, you're silky boys! Silk comes from the butts of Chinese worms." "I'll eat you up like the warm, toasty little buttercakes you are!" "You two-toed, no-nosed salamanders!"
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven : Well, more "Plastic Fluorescent-Backlit Clouds" Heaven, which the duo describe as "most atypical".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus : Some of the magazines and newspapers that appear detailing Would Stallyns' career in the credits are dated 2691. Maybe they get reprinted in the future.
• From Nobody to Nightmare : De Nomolos apparently went from a gym teacher to a terrorist leader and would-be world-conqueror, who planned to alter history so that the future would match his own - likely dystopian - political structure. A pretty big jump.
• At the Builder's Emporium, Death tells a smoker "See you real soon". After he passes by, you can see the smoker (played by the director) do a Double Take and quickly stub out his cigarette.
• The bizarre costumes of the people in heaven are often jokes in themselves, including one man who walks around heaven in a boxing outfit.
• Fusion Dance : The Stations can body-slam each other to form a larger, muscular STATION.
• Future Me Scares Me : Sort of. The duo quickly become afraid of what they think are their future selves, before it's revealed that they're actually evil robot doubles.
• Future Slang : "Station" is used as both a greeting and a positive adjective (in the fashion of "awesome"). Though at the concert at the end of the film, Ted says it can mean anything.
• God : Appears as a bright light in a roughly anthropoid shape who says very little.
• God Is Good : When Bill and Ted ask for help, he directs them to Station without question, even after they admit to mugging three people who had just ascended to heaven for their clothes.
• Graceful Loser : Evil Bill and Evil Ted of all people, when the Good Robot Usses charge them in the climactic concert. Not only do they congratulate the originals, but they seemingly concede defeat by tilting their heads back to give the Good Robots a better target. Evil Ted: Dude, we may have met our match! Evil Bill: Kudos to you, good human usses! Evil Bill and Evil Ted: Catch you later, Bill and Ted!! Bill and Ted: Catch you later, Bill and Ted!! (Good Robot Usses punch heads off Evil Robot Usses)
• The Grim Reaper : Starts off as a minor antagonist, but soon joins the guys. Later wins the Indy 500 on foot and gets caught in a lip-syncing scandal .
• Groin Attack : Variant: Bill and Ted use a Melvin, a front-side wedgie, on The Grim Reaper . Later the Reaper does it to De Nomolos.
• Happily Ever After : The end credits of the film feature a montage of newspaper headlines chronicling Bill & Ted's rise to fame and their music bringing about world peace and a new scientific renaissance while playing the song "God Gave Rock And Roll To You" by KISS . It's a very happy ending.
• In the future, Rufus brings Johann Sebastian Bach to his class.
• In heaven, there are various historical personages, including Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.
• Hollywood Board Games : Death is such a Sore Loser that he keeps asking the boys for rematches and when that doesn't work, asks to play another board game. They go from Cluedo to Battleship to Twister .
• Homage : The second movie parodies the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal where a Knight plays chess with the Grim Reaper for his soul. Bill and Ted play him with classic board games and Twister.
• Homemade Inventions : The Good Robot Usses.
• How Many Fingers? : Parodied when Ted asks his evil robot how many fingers he's about to hold up. When the robot announces "three," Ted indeed holds up three fingers. The comedy is whether Ted only held up three fingers because the robot said so.

• Bill and Ted's long fall to Hell, which takes so long they begin playing "20 Questions" to pass the time. To be fair, it was a pretty short game: Dead Bill: Hey, you wanna play Twenty Questions? Dead Ted: Okay! I got one! Dead Bill: Are you a mineral? Dead Ted: Yeah! Dead Bill: Are you a tank? Dead Ted: Whoa! Yeah!
• When this film airs on television, a commercial break is often placed in the middle of this scene, which probably makes the whole gag funnier .
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff Dead Bill: Ted. Dead Ted: Yeah? Dead Bill: If I die, you can have my Megadeth collection. Dead Ted: But, dude, we're already dead. Dead Bill: Oh. Well then they're yours, dude!
• Ironic Echo : "Catch ya later, Bill and Ted!" First by the Evil Robots to Bill and Ted, then by Bill and Ted to the Evil Robots. Both times, the party spoken to is about to die.
• Ironic Hell : Both boys experience this after passing through Fire and Brimstone Hell for a bit.
• It's Been Done : The plot is a blend of Terminator and, of all things, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park - which featured KISS battling Evil Robot KISS. Seriously.
• Kick the Dog : Evil Bill and Ted repeatedly try to kill animals. The Evil Robots' groping of the heroes' (rather chaste) princess girlfriends also counts in various ways.
• Kill and Replace : Evil Robot Bill & Ted are programmed to murder the originals, wreck their relationships, and ruin their performance at the battle of the bands. They even succeed, up to a point .
• Kirk's Rock : Lampshaded: Just before the boys meet the Evil Robots, they're watching that particular episode of Star Trek on TV. When the Evil Usses drag the boys up to the rock to kill them, we even get a recreation of the dramatic zoom out from Trek .
• Knight of Cerebus : The humor tones down a bit whenever De Nomolos appears. He's very straightforward and serious, though he ends up being not much of a threat in the end.
• Larynx Dissonance : Evil Bill changes his voice to one of the medieval babes to give Bill and Ted a fake breakup call, in order to lead them into the trap where they will be killed.
• LOL, 69 : Bill & Ted have crossed out the number on their apartment door and spray-painted a large "69" next to it.
• Losing Your Head : The Evil Usses' version of basketball. They end up losing their heads for good thanks to the Good Robot Usses.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right : Chuck De Nomolos' motive.
• Manly Facial Hair : Bill develops a beard during his and Ted's 16 months of training as a way of showing how much they have toughened up, although the newspaper photos indicate he shaves it off later.
• May–December Romance : Missy and Ted's father, who's even older than Bill's father from the first movie. And then she hooks up with Chuck De Nomolos at the end of that movie. The girl Really Gets Around .
• Meaningful Name : Ms. Wardroe is actually a disguise of Rufus's .
• Men Can't Keep House : Bill and Ted's apartment is a showcase of this trope.
• Mirror Match : The Evil Robot Bill and Ted vs. the Good Robot Usses.
• Monochrome Apparition : When Bill and Ted are dead, they're grayish-blue.
• Mugged for Disguise : Bill and Ted do this to people in heaven!
• Ted mentions the princesses are celebrating their fifth year in the 20th century. They arrived in the first movie which was set in 1988 so Bogus Journey must be set in 1993 when it was released in 1991.
• The Great Leader's comment in Bill & Ted Face the Music about the concert happening 25 years ago would put Bogus Journey as happening in 1995.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain : Ties in with the Stable Time Loop . Chuck De Nomolos decides to broadcast his defeat of Bill and Ted live to the world. After he's defeated, this only ensures that Bill and Ted broadcast their first performance live all over the world, hence beginning the cycle of their music creating the future Utopia .
• Obvious Stunt Double : At one point in Bill and Ted's apartment, Alex Winter steps off his mark and reveals the face of Keanu Reeves ' body double.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You : Rufus mentions to the protagonists that De Nomolos was the sit-up champion of the 27th Century. At least that seems to be a compliment, it might have been meant as a goofy version of How the Mighty Have Fallen .
• Orifice Invasion : Played for Laughs when Bill and Ted's ghosts try possessing two men. They squeeze in through the ears. "I totally possessed my dad!"
• Overly Long Gag : When they get sent to hell. "Dude, this is a totally deep hole."
• Overly Long Scream : Bill and Ted fall down a pit to hell, screaming the whole way, but the pit is so deep that they eventually get tired of repeatedly screaming and start playing 20 Questions.
• Our Founder : Bill and Ted, in the future.
• Out-Gambitted : The climax of the film. Both sides' plans rely on the premise that they won the current battle in the present, which would allow them to manipulate time afterwards and rig the battle in the present to their favor. "The future belongs to the winner."
• Outside-Context Problem : No one, least of all Bill and Ted themselves, saw evil duplicates of themselves coming back to kill them, under orders from an attempted revolutionary with plans to turn the future Earth into a dystopia . But in turn, Evil B&T and De Nomolos likely didn't forsee B&T allying with the Grim Reaper and a duo of Martians to stop them, and constructing good robotic duplicates to defeat the evil ones.
• Perfect Pacifist People : Bill and Ted's future society appears to be one of these.
• Pokémon Speak : The Stations use the word "Station" for everything.
• The Power of Rock : Exaggerated, as the effects of Wyld Stallyns' music are shown via a newspaper montage at the end of the film (set to KISS 's "God Gave Rock 'n Roll To You"): Wyld Stallyns Tour Midwest; Crop Growth Up 30% Bill & Ted Tour Mideast; Peace Achieved Stallyns Use World Nuclear Arsenal to Fuel Amplifiers Air Guitar Found to Eliminate Smog Bill & Ted Named Sportsmen of the Decade Rumored W.S. Split; DOW Drops 600 Points W.S. Split A Hoax - DOW To Record High Bill and Ted: The Movie Wyld Stallyns to Play Mars - "Station!"
• The patio table at the princesses' birthday is littered with Pepsi cans. They also hold Pepsi cans in the previous scene.
• An Establishing Shot lingers on the Builder's Emporium sign to make sure you know exactly which hardware store Bill and Ted frequent. Sadly, Builder's Emporium folded two years after the film released.
• Profound by Pop Song : Bill, Ted and Death try and get into Heaven and are asked to answer what the meaning of life is for entry. They answer by quoting "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison and it works!
• Really Gets Around : Missy was married to Bill's dad in the first film, but has left him and married Ted's dad by the sequel. She also flirts with Col. Oats, and the end credits reveal that she has left Ted's dad for Chuck De Nomolos.
• Retroactive Preparation : B&T manage to turn this trope into a martial art during the showdown with De Nomolos.
• Ridiculously Human Robots : The Evil Robot Bill and Ted, who can apparently get "full-on robot chubb[ies]" from looking at a picture of the guys' girlfriends.
• Robotic Reveal : Bill punching his robotic evil twin. "Oww! You're metal, dude!"
• Robot Me : There are Bill and Ted's evil robot copies from the future, and then Station improvises another robot Bill and Ted to counter them.
• Rule of Funny : The movie runs on this. Bill growing a ZZ Top beard in 16 months is the least implausible joke in the film.
• San Dimas Time : Interestingly, the sequel seems to throw this out by allowing Bill and Ted to spend 16 months to get guitar lessons, then return to the present to win the concert. One might assume that they have to jump 16 months into the future after they win the concert, but the news articles that display over the credits don't suggest that they vanished for 16 months after their first performance.
• Sdrawkcab Name : Chuck De Nomolos is this for writer Ed Solomon.
• Sdrawkcab Speech : Additionally, the exorcism chant is "Ed and Chris [Matheson, Solomon's co-writer] will rule the world", spoken backwards: D'lrow eht elur l'liw sirhc d'na de.
• The Death subplot is a direct parody of Death from The Seventh Seal .
• Bill and Ted watch the "Arena" episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , featuring Kirk's Rock . They are then taken to Kirk's Rock to be killed by the evil robots.
• Ted possesses his father, "Like from The Exorcist 1 and 3."
• The boys quote Poison 's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" when asked the meaning of life.
• Les Claypool of Primus wears a The Residents shirt onstage.
• Station is playing charades and miming the film Smokey and the Bandit 3 . Death guesses " Butch and Sundance: The Early Years ."
• Bill's waist-length beard in the very end is obviously a nod to ZZ Top .
• Something That Begins with "Boring" : Bill and Ted play 20 Questions while falling into Hell and waiting to land.
• Sore Loser : The Grim Reaper when he initially loses. It take several losses to the boys for him to finally give in to their demands.
• Spinning Paper : Seen during the end credits.
• Squick : An in-universe example: Death gets jealous of all the praise Station is getting and starts fishing for compliments. When Ted says Station has "an excellently huge Martian butt", Death says, "Don't overlook my butt. I work out all the time. Reaping burns a lot of calories." Bill and Ted visibly shudder at this.
• Stable Time Loop : Chuck De Nomolos is basically responsible for Wyld Stallyns' world fame, broadcasting their Battle of the Bands appearance to the world by accident in his attempt to Take Over the World . Also used tactically in the fight.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien : Station, despite his (their?) goofy appearance.
• Tagline : "Once... They Made history. Now... They Are History."
• Technology Porn : Station's assembly of the Good Robot Usses is a Homemade Inventions version of this trope.
• Throw the Dog a Bone : Despite his Butt-Monkey status, Death finds himself enjoying the company of Bill and Ted and being part of the band. Given that much of his grim nature appears to cover up severe insecurity and loneliness, Bill and Ted are probably the first friends he'd ever had. Also, it's shown during the news montage that he managed to win the Indianapolis 500 on foot . His response? " I didn't know I could run that fast ."
• Time-Passage Beard : Bill and Ted have beards after returning from a 16-month guitar training sabbatical. Bill somehow managed to grow a ZZ Top beard in that time .
• To Hell and Back
• Took a Level in Badass : At the end of the movie, Bill and Ted use the time machine to take 16 months of intensive guitar training, going from being bad on a horrendous level to astonishingly good. Not to mention using and exploiting the Retroactive Preparation trope to its' fullest extent to stop De Nomolos.
• Treacherous Advisor : Parodied. Early on, Chuck De Nomolos is recognized by Rufus and calls him his old teacher. Turns out, he was a gym teacher.
• Trust Password : Double subverted; when the heroes' Evil Twins arrive, Ted is suspicious, but Bill convinces him to trust them. Then Ted trusts his robot counterpart after it passes a How Many Fingers? test.
• Unfolding Plan Montage : The main characters face off against the Big Bad , each telling their plans and how they enacted them, resulting in weirdness out-of-flashback as Bill, Ted, and De Nomolos, all have time travel devices.
• Unnaturally Blue Lighting : Bill and Ted are treated to this when they wake up in the afterlife, and later when they're in Death's chamber playing his games.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight : Nobody seems to find it odd when Station and the Grim Reaper are wandering through Builder's Emporium.
• Uranus Is Showing : Bill and Ted say they admire Uranus when complimenting God , then chuckle.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show : Even in a Darker and Edgier movie played for laughs, De Nomolos is far more evil than something you'd expect from it. (He has a little humor potential, but it's all Black Humor .)
• Visual Pun : Bill and Ted echo back "Catch ya later, Bill and Ted!" to the Evil Robot Usses... and a few seconds later, do in fact catch the robots' flying heads.
• Wedgie : The characters give The Grim Reaper one.
• The Whole World Is Watching : The villain De Nomolos causes all the world's channels to watch his New Era Speech , but Bill and Ted are able to defeat him and then their future selves play their music for all the world to see, which makes them internationally famous. Nice Job Fixing It, Villain
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? : Averted in the comic and novel adaptation. Rather than the Xanatos Speed Chess battle with DeNomolos, the boys simply find the Self-Destruct Mechanism in Evil Robot B&T's heads and throw them to DeNomolos , killing him.
• The Next Sunday A.D. example above implies the movie is set in 1993. The newspaper and magazine articles that appear over the credits are mostly dated as the year of release, 1991. Some are dated 2691 but they're presumably future reprints.
• To make it more confusing, in Bill & Ted Face the Music (released and set in 2020) has the Great Leader saying the concert happened 25 years ago. Implying that Bogus Journey takes place in 1995.
• Xanatos Speed Chess : The final confrontation between Bill and Ted and DeNomolos.
• You Already Changed the Past : The entire climax is Bill, Ted, and Chuck De Nomolos performing dueling versions of this. Except that, as Bill points out, only the winner can change history, so all the things the villain thought he planted were just decoys B&T placed to lull him into a false sense of security .

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The best Bill & Ted movie is the one that took them on a Bogus Journey to hell and back

Watch This o ffers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Coming 2 America   now available to rent from home, we’re offering our own belated sequel to a past Watch This theme and singing the praises of more good comedy sequels.  

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Bill & ted’s bogus journey (1991).

When Bill & Ted Face The Music was released last year to general critic and fan enthusiasm, it represented at least two anomalies at once: a decades-later comedy sequel that lots of people actually liked and a satisfying conclusion to the even-rarer comedy trilogy. But defying conventional wisdom has been part of the whole deal with this series since Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure became an unexpected hit in 1989. Given that the film squeaked in at the end of the ’80s, it makes sense that it would be followed by the kind of quickie, low-rent sequel that helped define that decade (and comedy sequels in general). But if the turnover was indeed fast (a cash-in second installment arrived just two years after the original), the creative returns were undiminished: Somehow, the best Bill & Ted movie is the second one.

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey almost sounds like a parody of a sequel, starting with the title swapping in one synonym and one antonym. The film certainly lacks the loopy purity of its predecessor, where two metalhead slackers must travel through time to gain historical knowledge, pass their history exam, and preserve a future where their bumbling two-man rock band, Wyld Stallyns, saves humankind. On one level, Bogus Journey offers more of the same, as a future terrorist sends robot doubles of Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) back in time to destroy them and finish off Wyld Stallyns once and for all. (Amusingly, despite all the fuss, Bill and Ted remain the weak links in their own band; the medieval princesses they courted in the first film have grown into stronger musicians.) But in execution, Bogus Journey doesn’t rehash the original so much as one-up it.

The first major innovation in the screenplay by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson is that the evil robots succeed: Relatively early on, Bill and Ted are thrown off a cliff and killed. This sends them to meet Death (William Sadler), eventually leading to a celebrated parody of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal where instead of playing chess with Death, the boys challenge him to a series of contemporary board and party games. That’s just one sequence, though, in a plot that involves the duo visiting both heaven and hell; possessing the body of Ted’s father from the great beyond; and befriending a modular alien named Station, among other metaphysical misadventures. (The original, less cheerful title: Bill & Ted Go To Hell .)

This all has a certain stoner-comedy logic, but of course the Bill & Ted movies don’t actually involve mind-altering substances. Despite a few outdated bits of dialogue, they have an innocence that blurs the line between “teenage” and “boy”—like a sweet-natured flip side to the hilarious adult-tween aggression of Step Brothers . That’s true of all three Bill & Ted films; Bogus Journey stands out specifically because of its comedy, which is weirder, funnier, and more inventive than its siblings on either side. Deserved attention has been paid to Sadler’s Death, in possession of enough dour ego to keep challenging Bill and Ted to more games as his losses mount—a comedic gift that keeps on giving. But he’s not all the movie has to offer. Reeves and Winter are once again very funny, both as themselves and their malevolent robotic counterparts, and the movie deals with their sort-of demise with lightly mordant wit. Special shout-out to Winter for playing his character’s overly affectionate grandmother in Bill’s personal vision of hell; the movie is surprisingly committed to visualizing its jokes, rather than just relying on its stars’ slangy dialogue.

At times, the conceptual whimsy of Bogus Journey feels compatible with the work of innovative music-video directors like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, whose careers were starting up around this period. Certain details like Station the two-part Martian, a character perhaps more odd than truly funny, now feel like an inflection point between the dopiness of so many ’80s youthsploitation comedies and the scrappier alternative weirdness emerging in the ’90s. All three Bill & Ted movies ride that Spinal Tap -coined line between the clever and the stupid. Bogus Journey does it with the most triumphant confidence in its high-low trash-culture fusion.

Availability: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is currently streaming on HBO Max . It’s also available to rent or purchase through Amazon , Google , Apple , YouTube , Fandango Now , Redbox , AMC On Demand , DirecTV , and VUDU .

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey 1991 Film

Amiable slackers Bill and Ted are once again roped into a fantastical adventure when De Nomolos, a villain from the future, sends evil robot duplicates of the two lads to terminate and replace them. The robot doubles actually succeed in killing Bill and Ted, but the two are determined to escape the afterlife, challenging the Grim Reaper to a series of games in order to return to the land of the living.

Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon

• Science Fiction
• Orion Pictures

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey ( 1991 )

Plot summary.

Directed by: Peter Hewitt

Starring: Keanu Reeves , Pam Grier , William Sadler , George Carlin , Joss Ackland , Alex Winter

Genres: Adventure , Comedy , Fantasy , Sci-fi

Bill and Ted are killed by evil robots from the future. They try and find help until they end up in Hell. They escape by beating the Grim Reaper at a number of games, go to heaven, meet a brilliant scientist (Station), who builds them good robots. The good robots destroy the evil robots, but the evil robots' creator arrives who is quickly subdued by Bill and Ted, who spend a year (excluding that two-week medieval honeymoon) learning how to play the guitar. They put on a "jolly good show", and get famous.

More for Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Continuity mistake : In the scene where Death and Bill are playing Twister , Bill's left hand was on red and his right hand was on green. In the next shot when Death is putting his foot on blue, Bills hands are switched. In the same scene Bill's shoes are on the floor. After he wins they walk over to Death and his shoes are back on. He never had time between all the dialog to put them on.

Grim Reaper : A hit. You have sunk my battleship!

Trivia : The original title of this film was ' Bill and Ted go to Hell', but was changed for obvious reasons.

Jack's Revenge

Question : When the titles are running at the end, just after the headlines have stopped, the screen goes to black and the first title you see is "Taj Mahal". Obviously, I know what the Taj Mahal is, but why is it mentioned in the titles?

Answer: Taj Mahal is also the name of a blues singer who had a cameo role in the film (The Gatekeeper). He may have demanded a higher billing than the regular acting credits.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is 1861 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 1032 places since yesterday. In Australia, it is currently more popular than S.W.A.T. but less popular than The Third Saturday in October.

Amiable slackers Bill and Ted are once again roped into a fantastical adventure when De Nomolos, a villain from the future, sends evil robot duplicates of the two lads to terminate and replace them. The robot doubles actually succeed in killing Bill and Ted, but the two are determined to escape the afterlife, challenging the Grim Reaper to a series of games in order to return to the land of the living.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

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Home > Films > B > Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

Monday April 29th 2024

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey | 1991

• Locations |
• Los Angeles , California
• Peter Hewitt
• Keanu Reeves,
• Alex Winter,
• William Sadler,
• Joss Ackland,
• George Carlin,

Originally intended to be Bill and Ted Go to Hell , this time ‘San Dimas’ really is in California – but all the fun seems to have been left behind in Arizona .

The locale becomes a real Los Angeles suburb, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley.

The spectacular landscape where B&T give Death ( William Sadler ) a melvin is Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park , 10700 West Escondido Canyon Road , near Agua Dulce Springs , southern California . The photogenic rock formations can also be seen in plenty of films, including The Flintstones and the 2009 reboot of Star Trek .

The ‘Bill and Ted University’ campus is the Japanese Garden , 6100 Woodley Avenue , in Van Nuys , north of LA in the San Fernando Valley. Part of the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant , it’s another screen favourite, appearing in Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery , Rising Sun and Memoirs Of A Geisha .

‘San Dimas Civic Auditorium’, where the good Bill and Ted finally see off the evil Bill and Ted at the Battle of the Bands, is Santa Monica Civic Auditorium , 1855 Main Street in Santa Monica .

Visit The Film Locations

California | los angeles.

Visit: California

Visit: Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park , 10700 Escondido Canyon Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91390 ( tel: 661.268.0840 )

Visit: Los Angeles

Flights: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) , 1 World Way, Los Angeles, CA 90045 ( tel: 424.646.5252 )

Travelling around: Los Angeles Metro

Visit: the Japanese Garden , Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, 6100 Woodley Avenue, Van Nuys, CA 91406 ( tel: 818.756.8166 )

Visit: is Santa Monica Civic Auditorium , 1855 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401 ( tel: 310.458.8551 )

Screen Rant

All 9 keanu reeves villain roles, ranked worst to best.

Keanu Reeves is often cast as a hero in movies, but he has ventured into playing the villain a few times in his career to varying degrees of success.

• Reeves showcased versatility by playing the bad guy in films like "Don John" & the cult leader in "The Bad Batch".
• Despite a few misses, Reeves excelled as villains in roles like Donnie Barksdale in "The Gift" with a departure from his usual charm.
• Playing roles like Detective Tom Ludlow in "Street Kings" allowed Reeves to showcase his range beyond just action hero roles.

Keanu Reeves has built an incredible career playing action and supernatural-style heroes, but he has occasionally strayed into playing the role of a villain with interesting results. Reeves has been acting since 1984, and it wasn't long before he found himself in a leading role. In 1989, Reeves starred as Ted "Theodore" Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure . From this point on, his career typically saw him starring in films, or tackling a major leading role, often as the hero.

However, in the next few years, Keanu Reeves delivered several performances where he played the bad guy, but after 1993, his typecast was firmly set with him playing more heroic roles, and his performances as a villain became much more spread out and rare. Despite this, he has delivered a quality performance as the bad guy, with some truly dark and intimidating characters in his career where he played against type, and showcased his versatility as an actor.

9 Don John - Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Much Ado About Nothing is a Shakespearean comedy revolving around two young couples and the politics of love and war. While the film was an overall success, being nominated for a BAFTA and taking home several other awards, Reeves' performance as the villainous Don John actually earned him a nomination for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor. While Reeves excelled in heroic roles, he was an odd fit for the theatrical and farcical film based on a Shakespearean play.

However, the film's farcical nature did provide some saving grace to Reeves' performance. While he may have appeared wooden and out of place, this fit the general tone and silly nature of the film, which ultimately resolved with all of the trouble and struggles being for naught. It was at the very least an opportunity for Reeves to rub shoulders with some tremendously talented actors, such as Denzel Washington, Kenneth Braanagh, and Emma Thompson.

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8 evil ted - bill & ted's bogus journey (1991).

Continuing on with the trend of playing silly and goofy villains , Reeves also had a role playing two versions of the same character in the Bill & Ted sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Adventure . The film sees an evil villain send duplicate robots back in time to kill the boys and take over their lives. As such, Reeves played both the hero, Ted Logan, and an evil robot copy of himself. Once again, the films' nature contributed to making this performance enjoyable, despite it not being a technical triumph.

Reeves was still finding his feet as an actor, but being able to explore two opposing sides of the same character made for a positive and unique experience early in his career. The Evil Ted is a perfect copy in every way, except he is pure evil. Playing with a character who had so much in common, yet such a distinctive difference in nature made for a great juxtaposition in the comedy movie, as well as developing Reeves' talents as a performer with a wide and varying range.

7 Donaka Mark - Man Of Tai Chi (2013)

In 2013, after establishing a decades-long successful career in huge blockbuster movies , Reeves decided to try and expand his talents and challenged himself by directing and starring in a film. Reeves played the villain in his directorial debut, and thus far his only film in that role, Man of Tai Chi . The film follows a young gifted martial artist who is in desperate need of money. Fortunately for the hero, Tiger, he stumbles into an underground fighting ring where he can potentially win large sums of money.

Reeves plays the leader of this underground fighting ring, the dark and treacherous Donaka Mark. Mark is obsessed with seeing Tiger leave behind his master's teachings about self-defense, balance, and mercy, in order to make him a ruthless, bloodthirsty fighter like himself. Reeves does a great job considering he was trying to deliver on screen, and pull the entire project together from the directors' chair. However, it is not his best villain performance, with several other roles seeing him take things a step further when he is able to focus on performing.

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6 the dream - the bad batch (2016).

In 2016, Reeves played one of his most significant departures from his typical roles of all time in The Bad Batch . The dystopian horror mystery movie is a trip from beginning to end, and Reeves' role as the cult leader, Dream, is a standout performance in the movie overall. As a young girl wanders the wastelands and ruins of civilization, she stumbles upon odd settlements and societies which have pulled themselves together in the new world.

Dream is one of the most successful leaders in this new world, having excited a community to worship him with religious vigor. He also employs drugs and strategic addiction in his community to ensure those that worship him as their leader continue to stay in line, and become reliant on him to provide for their needs. Dream is an intense and twisted villain, and an excellent performance from Reeves as he finds an evil character to lock in and play to a high standard.

5 Hank - The Neon Demon (2016)

Again in 2016, Reeves was cast to play another villainous character in the suspenseful horror movie , The Neon Demon . The movie stars Elle Fanning as a young aspiring model, who becomes immersed in a world she has no experience with. Moving from a small town in Middle America into the constantly in motion Los Angeles, she finds herself out of her depth, and in danger at almost every corner. One such incident occurred when she was staying at a motel in town.

Reeves has a fairly minor role in the movie, but he leaves a lasting impression. Reeves plays the motel owner, Hank, who creates an intimidating and frightening environment for young, attractive guests like Jesse (Fanning). While Hank doesn't explicitly do anything to Jesse, he is the object of her trauma in her dreams when he assaults her in her room. In reality, Hank remains a seedy and dark character, thanks to the intense performance by Reeves.

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4 detective tom ludlow - street kings (2008).

While many of the villains on this list have been straightforward evil characters, Reeves also shines when he plays characters with a more ambiguous and gray moral standing. Characters like John Wick , who clearly fight for a moral reason, but perform acts that could be seen as villainous. However, while Wick fights to escape from a world of darkness and villainy, Reeves' character in Street Kings fights purely for revenge and to satisfy his inner darkness.

Detective Tom Ludlow was a well respected and high performing officer in the LAPD before the death of his wife completely changed his outlook on life. Now, a raging alcoholic, and a dirty corrupt cop, Ludlow is willing to do anything to get the job done, and gives into his tendencies for violence and brutality. Ludlow kills criminals, and frames their deaths as justified, as well as generally bending the law to fit his own will. The nuance and complexity of the character make it one of Reeves' best outings as an anti-hero.

3 David Allen Griffin - The Watcher (2000)

The Watcher is a complex psychological horror starring James Spader and Keanu Reeves as a down-on-his-luck detective who always appears to be a step behind, and an arrogant murderer who forms a misguided symbiotic relationship with the detective who is in pursuit of him. The film had a number of challenges getting made, with Reeves being forced into appearing in The Watcher , and plenty of negative reviews after release, but it still marks one of Reeves' best appearances as a villain.

Reeves plays David Allen Griffin, a murderer who gets a thrill from being chased and evading capture. His performance was up for a Golden Razzie Award once again, but the writing for his performance far exceeded the writing and narrow-minded idea for the character. Reeves may not have been happy about his major role in the project, but his performance as Griffin is completely different to his other roles, and showcases a side of Reeves where the lovable charm slips away to reveal a truly repulsive villain with a monumental ego.

10 Keanu Reeves Movies That Still Need Sequels

2 marlon james - i love you to death (1990).

Returning to the early days of Reeves' acting career, and following the recent success of his work on Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure , he appeared as a drug addict who is hired to kill an unfaithful husband. While the role is not quite as nefarious as some of his other villains, it did combine together several of the elements that he knew how to play best. Reeves plays Marlon, one half of the dim-witted duo who are hired to commit murder.

The film is a dark comedy story with Harlon and Marlon providing some highlights during the film as their plans fail to work, and they continue to be unreliable for-hire criminals. From forgetting who the target is, to getting easily caught, they may not be great criminals, but it was a perfect role for Reeves to explore playing a more negative character than he was accustomed to.

1 Donnie Barksdale - The Gift (2000)

However, Reeves absolute best performance as a villain came a decade later, as his reputation and talents continued to scale to new heights. In 2000, Reeves was cast to play Donnie Barksdale in Sam Raimi's supernatural psychological mystery. In a quiet town where s sudden murder shakes up the whole community, everyone is a suspect. However, when Cate Blanchett's Annie Wilson arrives in town, her psychic powers may be the key to solving the murder, and uncovering other dark secrets in the community.

Reeves plays the violent and abusive Donnie, who treats his wife abysmally and becomes a prime suspect in the murders. He actively tries to interfere with Wilson's investigation, and proves a generally unfavorable and disdainful character. The role is an incredible departure from Reeves' typical roles, but it also remains one of his best, as he embodies a character that is unlike anything he has done previously or since. Ultimately, Keanu Reeves clearly has a talent for playing the hero, and he can equally descend to play a terrifying villain.