The Goonies (1985)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Fresh and Exciting

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The Goonies is a movie that's inevitably going to show up on most all lists dealing with films of the 80s. While it does include its fair share of references to a good bit of 80s culture, the biggest draw I found with the movie is in the story. By no means is this a claim to boast it as being the most original story, but the smaller decisions to use a younger cast, focus on a classic pirate storyline, and root it with such relatable dialogue and characters is where the magic happens. The Goonies thrives from the kids. The careful casting, writing, and direction that went into making each kid their own special character is what has propelled the movie for decades. The stoic nature of Mikey plays perfectly off the perfectly named Mouth. The inclusion of the gadget based Data gives the movie a nice geeky side, and the cherry on top is in the form of the scene stealing Chunk. Then while the movie makes the smart decision to maintain its focus on the kids, the short fray into the teenagers subplots provides an enjoyable draw for the adolescent age group as well. Parents of today can then turn around and reminisce on the adventurous joys that came with being a kid in the 80s.Unfortunately a common argument that plagues a certain amount of films of every decade, but can stick out at times here is the technical aging of The Goonies. The dialogue dubbing, outdated special effects, and cheesy one liners can be distracting at times. In addition, the teenage subplot while minimal feels very artificial and last minute. However, at the end of the day, The Goonies lighthearted, feel-good story, dialogue, and characters cement it in the Pantheon of 80's Classics!

Full disclosure: I wasn't a Goonie generation. However, I decided to watch it upon seeing good ratings and plenty of good reviews. The possibility of watching another 80s adventure classic like Stand By Me was highly intriguing...But movie did not live up to those expectations. At all. The beginning was decent enough though, but soon after enormous plot holes and a lot of shouting mixed with unnecessarily loud background music killed my interest. And that's how it remained for the rest of the movie. It made me so puzzled because how can such a movie get such good reviews? I've seen some wonderful movies and series who were bashed big time even though their supposed plot holes were nothing compared to those in Goonies (I mean, how come nobody in 350 years wondered what was at the bottom of that wishing well?!).The only explanation I found is that you can like Goonies only if it was your childhood movie. I tried watching it at age 22, and it simply did not work.

I liked this film as a kid. Good storyline, characters, humor, and action were all a part of The Goonies in my opinion. Honestly, this is the only decent film that Sean Astin and Corey Feldman were in to me. Also, this exposed Cyndi Lauper to me for the first time in my life. And now I like listening to her from time to time. The kicker here is that The Goonies 2 or whatever sequel has not happened yet. I am guessing that the past actors, writers, director, etc. are not enthusiastic enough to develop that reuniting project. Oh, well.

This is one of the pearls defended by some of my friends with a similar age as "the movie to astonish your kids". But to be honest, I think the astonished was me. I saw the movie when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember too much (thanks god! I should have leaved it like that!). Now I regret to have seen it with my oldest. Just a bunch of kids screaming and swearing during a good part of the movie, fighting against time to discover a secret hidden in a very pathetic way, while a bunch of unattractive villains chase them to usual "they almost catched them" situations. Please, treat your kids as smart people, because they really are, and show them better adventure movies.