The Goonies (1985) Movie Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? Did you all have a good weekend? I had a pretty decent one. Apologies for not putting anything out last week after my Blue Beetle movie review. I got distracted with other things. But, I'm hopefully back in full force this week. Today I'm gonna be talking about the 1985 movie, The Goonies, which has a story by Steven Spielberg, a script by Chris Columbus, and directed by Richard Donner. Let's get into it.

The Goonies is a movie that I've only seen a handful of times, but love everytime I watch it. I don't say this too often, but it's one of those rare movies that is truly timeless, despite very much being an '80s movie. I saw it when I was probably about 12 or 13, in the late '90s, and I enjoyed it as much back then as I do now, and I think I would've liked it just as much as I would've had I been around to see it in 1985, when it had originally come out. To me that's the mark of a timeless movie.

You have a pretty amazing cast in this movie. I'm not super familiar with ALL of them, but I am familiar with most of them. I mean you have Josh Brolin as Brand, the oldest of the kids, and I know him as Thanos in the MCU, and Cable in Deadpool 2, and Sean Astin as Brand's younger brother, Mikey, and I know him as Samwise Gamgee in the The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the voice of Raphael in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, and he's in season 2 of Stranger Things, which I haven't seen. I also know Ke Huy Quan as Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The rest of the cast I'm barely familiar with. Jeff Cohen, who plays Chunk, left acting behind after 1991, so his acting resume isn't as long as some of the others. Corey Feldman is the only one I'm pretty familiar with as the voice of Donatello in the first and third live action Ninja Turtles movies from 1990 and 1993 respectively. I'm only distantly familiar with Kerri Green and Martha Plimpton, who play Andy and Stef in this movie, as I've only seen them in The Goonies, though Kerri Green was in another popular '80s movie, Lucas, which I also haven't seen.

My favourite scene in this movie is when Andy calls for Brand while the kids stop for a bathroom break, planning on kissing him, but, instead, he sends Mikey to see what Andy wants, and because Stef took the lantern, it's dark in the cave, so Andy doesn't realize that it's Mikey she's kissing. There's something so sweet and innocent about it, and, unlike in today's movies, that sort of thing doesn't create drama between Brand and Andy, Brand and Mikey, or Mikey and Andy. It also makes sense that Andy would mistaken Mikey for Brand, since it's dark in the cave and she's never actually kissed Brand before, so she wouldn't know the difference necessarily. I also like the scene near the end where the Fratellis are trying to make the kids walk the plank of the pirate ship, and Chunk and Sloth show up to save the day.  

I also find it interesting that Ke Huy Quan plays a character whose nickname is Data, just because The Goonies came out a little over two years before we were introduced to Lieutenant Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

If I'd never seen The Goonies before and somebody told me what the movie was about, without telling me who the people making the movie were, I could actually believe that this was a Steven Spielberg production, written by Chris Columbus, and directed by Richard Donner. Because I've seen some of their other movies. Like I've seen Donner's Superman, I've seen tons of Spielberg movies, and I've seen Columbus's Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Mrs. Doubtfire and all of those movies have elements that they share with The Goonies.

The score for the movie was done by Dave Grusin, who I'm not familiar with outside of his work on this movie. The movie's theme song, "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" was done by Cyndi Lauper, who I'm pretty familiar with from her songs "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Time After Time". The rest of the soundtrack is full of songs by the day's popular artists like Cyndi Lauper, Luther Vandross, The Bangles, and REO Speedwagon. The songs are probably the only thing about the movie that dates it a bit, but honestly, I wasn't paying too much attention to the music outside of Grusin's score and Cyndi Lauper's song when I was watching the movie last night before bed. 

The only real issue I have with this movie is that it has a little bit of bad editing, and doesn't really establish the situation the families of the kids are in. Troy, the teenage jerk of the movie, mentions that it's his dad who wants to destroy the Goon Docks, but that's more than half an hour into the movie, so the stakes aren't very clear other than someone wants to demolish everyone's houses. Also, at the end of the movie, Andy mentions encountering an Octopus in the chamber where the pirate ship, Inferno, was located, but there's no scene with an Octopus. That's because there are two deleted scenes, which are on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the movie, that establish these things. So I do wish those scenes weren't removed from the movie itself. 

I saw The Goonies on VHS sometime between my 12th birthday in 1998 and my 16th birthday in 2002. I know, earlier I said when I was around 12 or 13, but I actually don't remember for sure. I know it wasn't before my 11th birthday in 1997 and it was after the Ice Storm of 1998, but, I also know it was before I turned 16, because I got a TV/VCR combo set for my 16th birthday in 2002, and I remember watching the movie on VHS on the TV in the family room rather than in my bedroom. It was one of those rare nights where my brother and sister weren't home and my parents decided to rent a movie for me that night. As I said before, I really enjoyed the movie, but I didn't exactly ask for someone to get me my own copy on VHS or on DVD once we got a DVD player in the early 2000s. 

I eventually did get it on DVD in 2014 or 2015 and I think I've only watched it twice since then. Aside from the case changing from the snapper case of the late '90s and early 2000s to a regular DVD case, nothing has changed between the DVD releases that the movie has had. There's an audio commentary, a short "Making of" featurette, the "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" music video by Cyndi Lauper, and four deleted scenes (called outtakes here). I haven't watched the movie with the commentary and I haven't watched the music video, but I did watch the deleted scenes and the featurette after watching the movie last night and they were decent.

I love this movie and I really need to watch it more often just for my personal enjoyment. Before last night I think the last time I watched it was when I got it on DVD in 2014 or 2015, whenever that was. It's a great movie and I definitely recommend giving it a watch if you've never seen it before. Like I said at the beginning of this review, it's one of the rare movies made in the '80s that holds up after nearly 39 years. 

Alright my friends that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more posts and reviews. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.