Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey arrives as the second entry in a franchise that has never pretended to be about anything other than two amiable young men and their guitars. Pete Hewitt, making his feature debut, sends the pair through a Bergman spoof, a robot insurrection, and a tour of both Heaven and Hell, all without pausing to address a single item on the contemporary cultural ledger. The result plays like a time capsule from a period when a comedy could kill its heroes in the first act and consider that sufficient narrative ambition.

The audit comes back empty, and it comes back empty honestly. Pam Grier receives prominent billing as Ms. Wardroe, the Battle of the Bands organizer, and the film then reveals her to be Rufus in disguise, which means the production's most visible gesture toward a multiracial cast is undone by a plot twist that hands the part back to George Carlin. Joanna and Elizabeth graduate from medieval princesses to accomplished musicians, yet the screenplay keeps them tethered to engagement rings and, later, to ropes above a stage. Race, sexuality, class, and the environment go unmentioned, not through evasion but through genuine disinterest.

The film's vision of paradise is a record contract, twenty-five thousand dollars in prize money, and a ballad broadcast to the entire planet. It does not occur to anyone involved that this arrangement might warrant scrutiny. Death, played with weary dignity by William Sadler, is the closest thing to a thesis, and his thesis is that Twister is a difficult game for a reaper. We are left with a harmless, inventive, occasionally inspired sequel that asks nothing of its audience beyond ninety minutes of attention.