Monday 15 November 2010

Great Montages Of Our Time: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

I love Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, not least because it does that ludicrously enjoyable thing of having a big, stage-set climax in front of a skeptical-turned-rapturous audience that so many great movies have (hello again, Napoleon Dynamite). It also has one of the best '80s pop soundtracks, like, ever, which will always occupy a special place in my heart as the first CD I ever bought.

Big Pig - Breakaway


Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure's crowning glory, however, is the pickle-tickling montage that polishes off the second act and sets up the third in a way that would have screenwriting guru Syd Field reaching for the tissues. And I don't mean to have a cry.

When the perfectly-cast supporting characters (I will always picture "Bob" Genghis Kahn as the little dude from Die Hard) run riot in a shopping mall centre to the strains of usually execrable late '80s / early '90s cock-rockers Extreme's 'Play With Me', it delivers the kind of warm, fuzzy hit that makes movies the drug of choice for people like me.



Just to cement this montage's place in history, I was delighted to see this entry in the IMDb Parents' Guide for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure:
Ban this sick filth.

4 comments :

  1. With this and Napoleon Dynamite, you're tickling my pickle, Mr Suit!

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  2. I also enjoy the 'Making of good robot Bill and Ted by weird giant walking poo-thing Station' montage in Bogus Journey. Always reminded me of classic early 90s CBBC arts and crafts show Itsa Bitsa.

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  3. Such a shame, though, that Bogus Journey is such a bogus journey.

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  4. It must be at least ten years since I've seen this yet I just watched it without sound and could still 'hear' every bit of it. I did add a Man with the Golden Gun slidewhistle on Khan's jump though.

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