Bill & Ted’s Most Excellent Collection (DVD)

Well the boys that made "bogus" an everyday term are back for a dose of DVD collectibles with Bill & Ted's Most Excellent Collection, and like it or not, these guys were funny. Question is, are they funny still, and who exactly is this set made for?

When these films first came out I as 12 and 14, and I thought these guys were funny as hell, but that was back before I cared much about intelligent plotlines and good acting. Then again, I guess the world could be saved by a couple of idiots with air guitars who say "dude" every other word. This by no means is a crack on these flicks; they serve their purpose, to entertain the younger generation. However, I am not too sure the young kids of this generation will find these guys very funny, the humor is a bit outdated and the target audience may very well have outgrown these two dudes.

I still got a couple of chuckles out of them, but I am also remembering the first time I heard "Full on robot stiffy" and thought it was absolutely hilarious, hearing it more than once in a 365 day period may be a bit too much.

This collection boasts the two films as well as a never-before-scene third disc that holds the bulk of your special features, and surprisingly enough there are actually a couple of good features here, then again there are some really heinous ones.

First to the bad... The air guitar tutorial I could have done without, the Bill and Ted-esque look at historical features was worthless, I didn't care much for the Steve Vai interview and the featurette showing the multitude of ways Bill and Ted say "good" got a little old.

The good, or should I say "most triumphant" features on the third disc included a making-of documentary that talked with most everyone involved in making the film except for Keanu Reeves, whose footage was all archived footage, then there was the premiere episode of Bill and Ted's cartoon series and finally the best of the bunch, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the writers of the two films, sit down to talk about their creative process. Matheson and Solomon also talk about things that did not make it into the film, how the film originally involved a time traveling van and so on. It was actually good stuff, and you are also invited to preview the actual hand-written pages of the first draft of the script.

Overall, you can't really hate these films because they are meant to be stupid entertainment and that is exactly what they are, looking for anything more than that is a waste of time. That said, I am still not sure who will benefit most from buying this set, but with the price over at Amazon.com equal to the price of one DVD you can't really go wrong if Bill and Ted were once part of your life and you would like them back in it.