Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Collection

Two cult slacker comedies receive special edition treatment in this double-feature set. In Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter star as the eponymous high school underachievers and would-be rock stars who are destined to save the world with their music, or so claims their most excellent fan from the future, a time-travelling sage named Rufus (George Carlin). But first they have to pass high school history and learn to play their instruments. This spirited doofus comedy is sustained by the sweet, slack-jawed performances of Reeves and Winter as dumbfounded idiots who stumble through history to cram for their final with the help of a time-traveling phone booth that allows them to round up Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Beethoven, and Socrates (among others), and bring them back to suburban California. Stephen Herek directs their debut adventure while Peter Hewitt takes the reins for the inspired sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), which is even sillier and at times funnier. Here, Bill and Ted are killed by evil robot doubles and sent to Hell, where they play Twister with the Grim Reaper (a hilariously deadpan William Sadler) and then draft him into their band, Wyld Stallyns. Wacky, weird, and nonsensical—with a refreshing innocence to the humor—these goofy comedies make a welcome debut on Blu-ray in this extras-packed set that includes multiple audio commentary tracks, new retrospective documentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, an interview with guitarist Steve Vai, and an “Air Guitar Tutorial.” Recommended. (S. Axmaker)