Bill and Ted are two high school friends who want to start a band. The boys use Rufus’ time machine with the help of a time traveler from the future, traveling to various historical periods and bringing back important historical figures to aid in the preparation of their final history presentation.

Both slyly intelligent and sweetly playful, this comedy tears up the rules of time-travel fiction with gleeful abandon. What could so easily have been a mean-spirited jibe at the heavy-metal generation instead harbors sincere, winning humanity thanks to the lead actors’ performances. Excellent!