My Review of The Goonies (1985)

 

Written by Chris Columbus And Steven Spielberg

Directed by Richard Donner

Mikey: "Goonies never say die!"

Before the year is out, I want to watch and review more movies from 1985 that I've either not watched before or haven't watched in a long time. This falls into the latter category.

Okay, so we've got four lads named Mikey (Sean Astin), Chuck (Jeff Cohen), Mouth (Corey Feldman) and Data (Ke Huy Quan). One has asthma, the other knows Spanish badly, the other's a habitual fabulist and the other one knows their way around gadgets. As a friendship group though, they oddly compliment one another.

Throw in some older kids into the mix as Mikey's older brother, Brand (Josh Brolin), his girlfriend Andy (Kerri Green) tomboy Stef (Martha Plimpton) and you've got a bunch of characters thrown together on a rather madcap adventure. An adventure that would force all of them step up as characters.

The adventure involved a villainous family led by Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsay). She had two able bodied but still incompetent sons with Jake (Robert Davi) and Francis (Joe Pantoliano). There was also the deformed Sloth (John Matuszak). Sloth's poorly treated by his family but would end up forming a bond with Chuck.

The big story involved all of these characters being a mission to find One Eyed Willy's treasure and it's definitely a madcap adventure in doing so. I mean there's even most of the characters having to walk the plank of an underground pirate ship before the good guys won.

As antagonists, the Fratellis are hardly scary but they're a nice mixture of would be intimidating (they didn't have an issue with nearly blending Chuck's hand), mean spirited (Mama's horrible to kids) and laughably incompetent. Their just desserts at the end of the film were definitely deserved.

- Earlier this year, a sequel was actually announced for this movie. Richard Donner had a cameo in this movie.

- There's nice references to both Superman: The Movie (1978) and Gremlins (1984). 

- Standout music: Cyndi Lauper's The Goonies 'R' Good Enough.

- Chronology: 1980s, Astoria in Oregon.

Although not my favourite movie from 1985, I do enjoy The Goonies a lot and it's hard to deny it's overall cultural impact as a film. It's definitely a lazy afternoon sort of watch. 

Rating: 8 out of 10