Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves play the titular Bill and Ted, a pair of loveable doofuses and would-be rockers gifted a time machine to complete their high-school history project. The script’s valley slang belies its deft construction. It avoids the idiot plot trope and doesn’t derive comedy from Bill and Ted’s idiocy. Rather, it paints their ignorance as a strength. The easiest way to cope with time-travel’s existential horrors is to simply not consider them.