Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

(On DVD, March 2008) It only took twenty years, but I finally got to see this silly SF comedy. The stupidity of the film’s surface hides fairly sophisticated writing: the collision between the sublime nature of the SF devices (Go back in history! Meet historical figures!) and the ridiculousness of the dim characters is a constant laugh generator. It’s not much of a Science-Fiction film, but it does manage a neat twist on the paradoxes of time travel that will leave savvy SF readers grinning for days. The film has generally aged well, though the valley-speak patois of the lead characters has been co-opted later on by the antics of the Wayne’s World movies and such. Still, the movie is great good fun in the silly-SF-comedy vein, there are a few priceless scenes and the quotes are infectious.