Two high school students who want to be rock musicians have one day to create a history project, which is helped by a man with a time travelling telephone box and they meet various historical characters. At its heart this is a teen buddy movie, although played out with almost comic book style. The film has a different approach to time travel that not does worry about the effects of messing with time. There is a sense of fish out of water with Bill and Ted going back in time and historical figures coming into a 1980's Californian shopping Mall.
The film was largely funded by Dino De Laurentiis after the major studios turned down the script and was director Stephen Herek's second film. This was Keanau Reeves break out film.