Sunday, September 5, 2010

A Fun Review Of The Goonies

By Christie Boyle

Goonies for life! If you were a child of the eighties, you certainly remember this classic. If you haven't seen it yet, think Stand By Me meets Indiana Jones meets Pirates of the Caribbean. The end result is a thrilling, funny, exciting, and really fun adventure flick that entertains everybody of every age no matter who you are. If it's been awhile, put it on your movie downloads queue and relive the eighties with one of the all time great family adventure films.

The movie focuses on Mikey Walsh and his band of "Goonies", kids from the docks area of Astoria, Oregon. The kids are sort of the outcasts, the rejects, the ne'er do wells of the town, who have a long on-going rivalry with the rich kids. This rivalry comes to a head when the local rich guys plan to foreclose on the neighborhood and turn it into a golf course.

So, the Goonies have to go get some buried treasure to save their neighborhood. They find a treasure map in dad's attic, they go to a restaurant on the edge of town where it turns out there are some Italian gangsters known as the Fratellis hiding out, and keeping their little brother, Sloth, a gigantic, deformed monster with a heart of gold chained up to a chair watching black and white TV all day. So the kids have to somehow get into the caves under the restaurant and find the treasure without getting the Fratellis' attention and...

With the pirates, the foreclosure subplot, the gangsters, the treasure, the coming of age thread, it... Sounds kind of complicated, right? Well, it really isn't. Remember, the only reason all these other factors are there is to keep the movie moving. It's all about adventure, and the gangsters and rich kids and all that, that's just something for the Goonies to always be running away from as they go from booby trap to booby trap and develop deeper bonds of friendship.

The movie is really a lot of fun. What makes it work is that it's shot in a fairly matter of fact style. It doesn't feel like a fantasy film, really. It feels just as real as Stand By Me or any other coming of age film. The fact that it has pirate ships and all kinds of crazy stuff like that, well, that's sort of just the background of the movie.

When the movie first came out, it was actually considered to be just a bit TOO wild and fast paced. Times have changed, and with the manic pace and constant chase scenes of modern family films, The Goonies feels downright laid back in comparison.

But in any event, it's one of the all time great eighties flicks, as it well should be, having been produced by Spielberg and directed by Richard Donner. The style, the fashion, the music, it all adds up to a movie that couldn't have been made in any other decade.

However you look at it, the movie's a classic. It's sort of like Indiana Jones with kids in the lead. If you have fond memories of the film from your childhood, give it another watch, and keep it on your hard drive to share with your own kids one of these days. - 40724

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