Bill & Ted's Rad Reunion
Bill & Ted: After one wacky adventure too many, Bill and Ted are sick of the sight of each other and haven’t spoken in years. Forced to reunite to stop the world spinning off its axis, the pair slag each other off for 90 minutes, before eventually making up in a traditional bromance stylee.
Historical Guest Stars: Paul McCartney appears to tell the pair how much he hated John Lennon, but put up with him for the cash.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Overlong thanks to the hiring of Judd Apatow to direct, but a hit nonetheless.
Bill & Ted's '80s Extravaganza
Bill & Ted: In an Expendables -style genre blowout, the pair team up with Ferris Bueller, Marty McFly and the cast of The Breakfast Club to thwart a villainous scheme to delete the ‘80s from history.
Historical Guest Stars: Patrick Swayze’s CGI ghost arrives to lend a helping hand when the gang pitch up at Roadhouse.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Despite being a tongue-in-cheek guilty pleasure for thirty-somethings everywhere, the film misses its target teen audience, who’ve no idea who Emilio Estevez is.
Bill & Ted's Tremendous Tour
Bill & Ted: Despite Rufus’s assurances to the contrary, Wyld Stallyns are going nowhere, playing the odd school dance and backstreet dive, whilst living out of a battered old van. Worried their fate has gone off-course, they head back in time to get some advice from the greats…
Historical Guest Stars: Loads to choose from as B&T head through the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Chris Tucker as Jimi Hendrix is a rare bum note.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? A roaring success, with the unhappy knock-on result that today’s bands start ruthlessly mining the classics. McFly lead the way with a Monkees cover album…
Bill & Ted's Galactic Gnarl-Fest
Bill & Ted: “What's the funniest and most surprising take on where Bill and Ted would be right now if we stopped back in on them?” wondered Alex Winter recently. Well, funny or not, if putting them in space for some reason hasn’t been discussed, we’ll eat our plaid shirts.
Historical Guest Stars: A geriatric Buzz Aldrin stars as himself, barking “I’m too old for this shit” in every scene he appears in.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? A lazy, cynical retread of the same old rubbish, only in space. It’s a box office smash.
Bill & Ted's Marital Mayhem
Bill & Ted: Having been ditched by their respective wives over their ceaseless buffoonery, B&T are happily living the single life until their future selves warn them that humankind will die out unless they procreate. Cue a series of rom-com mishaps, as the pair try to worm their way back into married life.
Historical Guest Stars: An ageing Billy Crystal, who teaches our heroes that rom-coms don’t have to suck…
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? A mixture of knuckleheaded gags and gooey sentimentality, it’s a date night winner.
Bill & Ted's Musical Meltdown
Bill & Ted: Having become the most successful band of all time, our heroes have been kidnapped by an evil record label and forced to record an easy listening album. Only by sneaking in some subliminally righteous lyrics can they save the world from mediocre music!
Historical Guest Stars: Will Ferrell stars as Simon Cowell, the money-grabbing bastard behind the villainous scheme.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? A roaring success until it’s discovered that Cowell has financed the entire project on the sly, and is ploughing the proceeds straight back into The X-Factor . Nooooooo!
Bill & Ted's Outrageous Offspring
Bill & Ted: After years of rocking out, B&T have only gone and settled down, shacked up with both wives and kids in their comfy Hollywood homes. Not only that, but they’ve gone square as well, banning their kids from loud music! Time for Will & Jed (Their sons. What?) to remind them what they’ve been missing…
Historical Guest Stars: W&J travel back in time to round up some of the hardest-living rockers in history. Cue the inevitable cameo from Ozzy Osbourne.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? The teen-route is a success, and the franchise is successfully rebooted. Go Hollywood!
Bill & Ted's Wartime Wipeout
Bill & Ted: With Neo-Nazism on the rise in the States, Bill and Ted head back to early 20th Century Austria in order to befriend a teenage Hitler, turn him into a radical dude, and avert fascism forever. A scene in which B&T get the school oompah band to play Enter Sandman is a highlight.
Historical Guest Stars: Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays the pubescent Fuhrer as a spotty, awkward geek, in need of a few bitching riffs to set him on the straight and narrow.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Swamped by controversy, it becomes a sleeper hit, with fans flocking to see what all the fuss is about.
Bill & Ted's Terrific Time Machine
Bill & Ted: In a return to the roots of the series, Bill & Ted attempt to go back in time to stop themselves releasing an ill-judged gospel-rock single. However, without Rufus to guide them (Winter recently confirmed “we’re definitely not going to recast Rufus”) they go way of course, resulting in a series of hilarious Butterly Effect fuckups.
Historical Guest Stars: Slash appears in an unlikely but chucklesome cameo as Mozart.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Despite an attempt to rekindle the magic of the original, it ends up little more than a tired retread. Boooo!
Bill & Ted: The Musical
Bill & Ted: When a Wyld Stallyns tour party gets so out of hand that a roadie suffers second-degree burns, B&T are slapped with community service helping out at their old school. Happily, they’re just in time for the annual Battle of The Bands, and end up coaching a group of metal-head outsiders to victory. Wooo!
Historical Guest Stars: None. Time travel is out, heavily choreographed dance sequences are sadly in.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? The film makes a packet from the tween audience, whilst devotees weep into their VHS originals.
Bill & Ted's Superb Shakedown
Bill & Ted: When their record label is taken over by some shady Mafioso types, the awesome twosome head back to 1920s New York, persuade Al Capone and friends to get involved, then bring them back to the future for an almighty mob shootout. Keanu has mentioned Scorsese and Coppola as potential directors (really)…this is the version for them!
Historical Guest Stars: Danny DeVito steals the show as a wisecracking Capone.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Time travelling mafia goons? Excellent of course!
Bill & Ted's Existential Epic
Bill & Ted: Keanu also jokingly mentioned Werner Herzog as a dream director, imagining the auteur’s take on things as, “two clowns (pushing) our perspective of reality and truth to the forefront of meaning and knowledge.” We like to think he’d have the whole thing play out in Ted’s subconscious, after a falling speaker puts him in a coma.
Historical Guest Stars: Jeff Bridges appears as Ted’s idea of God. Who is basically The Dude.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? An arty mindfuck confounding audiences and critics alike, Herzog runs the series firmly into the ground. Radical!
Bill & Ted in Way Cool Washington
Bill & Ted: B&T are called upon once again to save the world from bogusness, when Rufus (a digitally restored George Carlin) warns them that the Christian right-wing will usurp the democrats and stamp out rock and roll within 20 years. Cue Bill and Ted running for office in a ludicrous plot that sees them win joint presidency of the US.
Historical Guest Stars: Oliver Stone cameos as a controversially left-wing Abe Lincoln, who turns up to endorse B&T’s campaign.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Obama declares himself a fan as the film splits the domestic audience right down the middle.
Bill & Ted's Future Freakout
Bill & Ted: A time-travel-related mishap sees the Bill and Ted of the first two films marooned in present day America, where heavy metal has died a death, iPods have replaced ghetto-blasters and nobody wears denim. A digitally de-aged Reeves and Winter play it for laughs in this fish-out-of-water farce, as they attempt to find their way back to the ‘90s.
Historical Guest Stars: No jaunt back to the past this time round. Reeves and Winter are the only relics on show here.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? The clever digital trickery is undermined by modern audiences failing to recognise who Alex Winter is.
Bill & Ted's Devilish Duel
Bill & Ted: With Wyld Stallyns now platinum-selling megastars, things are looking good for Bill and Ted, until Satan pitches up demanding both their souls. Bill made a deal with him on the quiet you see: success for soul. The only way they can escape their fate is by defeating El Diablo in a guitar-based face-off…
Historical Guest Stars: Dave Grohl is the Devil. He nailed it in that Tenacious D video after all…
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Despite basically ripping-off the plot of Guitar Hero, the film is a massive success. The tie-in video game is a bridge too far though and a lawsuit duly follows.
Bill & Ted 3D
Bill & Ted: The boys decide to make a movie charting the rise of Wyld Stallyns from garage-band no-hopers to stadium-filling giants. They want to make it in the classic, two-dimensional style of their youth, but the nasty old studio are determined to tack on a three-dimensional gimmick…
Historical Guest Stars: Ben Stiller has an uncredited cameo as Jim Cameron, who meets a luddite-pleasing sticky end half way through.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? Mass confusion erupts over the fact that the it’s a 2D film about a 3D film. An irony-free 3D version is hastily rushed out for a re-release…
Bill & Ted: Rise Of The Dudes
Bill & Ted: Having vowed to lay-off the time travel for good, veteran rockers Bill and Ted can’t resist a quick flash-forward to see how their music has left a mark. Horrifyingly, it’s had quite the effect: everyone speaks, dresses and acts like them, so much so that the only cool people are the ones who don’t. Dismayed at undoing their own good work, the two return to the present, disband Wyld Stallions and set about belatedly growing up…
Historical Guest Stars: Shia LaBeouf in a self-mocking role as a generic Ted clone.
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? The downbeat tone is too much for some, but others hail it as a classic vision of a dystopian nightmare.
Bill & Ted's Postmodern Piss-Take
Bill & Ted: With the band having split years earlier, Ted has become a millionaire superstar, whilst Bill has disappeared without trace. Ted’s happy enough, until he’s confronted by “Alex Winter”, who begs Ted to track down his erstwhile partner for a career-saving reunion gig. Charlie Kaufman is brought in to write and direct.
Historical Guest Stars: Gary Busey plays washed-up nobody Alex Winter. Come on, you’d go and watch it…
Excellent Adventure or Bogus Journey? A critically-hailed hit, Reeves and Winter are applauded for their self-mocking, postmodern performances. Keanu smiles and nods blankly…
