Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
If Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure is a well-behaved, well-presented, mildly amusing middle-school child, then Bogus Journey is its tequila-swigging, authority-challenging, regularly expelled older sibling. Adventure played by the rules that Journey went on to spectacularly break. The first film saw our heroes travel back in time to pass a history test. The second saw them go to Hell. Bogus Journey is so dark, The Grim Reaper is literally third on the cast list, as the lead characters’ side-kick.
That’s not to say that Peter Hewitt’s film – written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon – isn’t funny. On the contrary, it’s absolutely hilarious. But it is also wonderfully subversive, and brilliantly edgy. As Bill and Ted find themselves threatened by malevolent android versions of themselves (“evil robot us-es”) – sent back in time by the devious De Nomolos to destroy them before they have a chance to win the Battle Of The Bands and save the world – they find themselves in a tight spot, and are soon ruthlessly murdered. It is at this point that the movie becomes something that surpasses its original, as Death arrives and our intrepid time travellers challenge him to a contest. If they win, The Grim Reaper must return them so they can rescue their oblivious girlfriends (who are medieval princesses from England, by the way). If they lose, they must stay in The Afterlife forever.
What follows is a perfectly observed, fantastically shot trip from Earth to Hell, to Heaven and back again – featuring scientific geniuses from another planet, a demonic Easter Bunny, Poison lyrics for God, and a bass-playing Grim Reaper. Bogus Journey isn’t bogus at all. It is most definitely a non-heinous superior sequel.