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 follows, who else, The Goonies. This gang of misfits, led by Mikey Walsh, is known around the city of Astoria, Oregon for always getting into some sort of trouble. The story really kicks off when the rich folks in town decide to buy up the neighborhood to convert it into a golf course. The city of Astoria is really gorgeous, and it's too bad that it only features prominently in the first act of the film before it gets into the cave-dwelling adventure stuff.

The Goonies take it upon themselves to save the Boon Docks. They start by getting into the attic, where Mike's dad, a museum curator, has a bunch of old pirate stuff stashed. They find a treasure map leading them to an old restaurant on the coast. The restaurant is run by the Fratellis, a low rent crime family led by Ma Fratelli, a serious ball buster who takes a sort of Bates Motel approach to mothering her children, played by Robert Davi and Joe Pantoliano. They have to figure out how to get under the restaurant to get the treasure without alerting the Fratellis and...

It sounds like a lot of information to take in all at once: Pirates, the mafia, buried treasure, foreclosures... But if you just stay along for the ride, you don't have to worry about keeping track of all that. Just enjoy it for what it is, a fast paced, action filled adventure romp through caves and crypts, culminating in a showdown on an underground pirate ship.

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 film came out, it was considered to be a little TOO fast paced, with booby traps and swordfights breaking out at the drop of a hat. However, when compared to the manic pace of most modern children's films, The Goonies is downright laid back.

Anyways, it really is one of the quintessential eighties flicks. The style, the music, the genre, even, it's all eighties, so at the very least, it'll bring you back if you grew up in that 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. - 40727

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