Sunday, September 5, 2010

A Fun Review Of The Goonies

By Christie Boyle

Goonies Forever! If you grew up in the eighties, then no doubt you have fond memories of watching this movie over and over until the VHS tape finally wore out and snapped. If you haven't seen it yet for whatever reason, think of it like... Captain Blood meets Indiana Jones meets Stand By Me meets Goodfellas. It really does have a little something from everything in terms of movie genres, and it's definitely a classic as far as movie downloads go.

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 of course, the Goonies take it upon themselves to save the neighborhood, right? Right. Mikey finds an old pirate treasure map in dad's stuff in the attic, and he and the Goonies follow it to an old abandoned restaurant out on the coast at the edge of town. Turns out, some real sleazy gangsters are hiding out there, the Fratellis. These guys, led by Ma Fratelli, a real ball buster, are about as sleazy as it gets, as played by Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi.

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.

Regardless, the film is a classic of the eighties era of adventure movies. Back when Indiana Jones was big, you had a bunch of people who wanted to join in and put their own spin on it. The Goonies was actually devised by Spielberg himself, so it was sort of his own take on his own ideas: Put kids in place of Indiana Jones.

It really is a classic in its own right, sort of the family film answer to Indiana Jones. If you remember it from your own childhood, now may be the time to turn your own children on to the adventures of Mikey Walsh and the rest of the Goon Squad. - 40726

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