The Goonies

1985 slice o' childhood

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Two brothers are about to lose their house and hangout of the titular gang of dorks because some land developers want to get their hands on the land. Luckily, they conveniently find pirate One-Eyed Willy's treasure map in their attic and decide to go treasure hunting. It's an adventure that leads them to the hide-out of escaped criminals.

"But Jen, you've got to see The Goonies! I can't believe you didn't see this as a kid!"

I'm not sure why I said that. I hadn't seen this movie since I was twelve, and it wasn't really one of my favorites anyway. As an adventure story, it sufficed between installments of Indiana Jones maybe, but this isn't really something that I remember enjoying all that much back then or that made me nostalgic now. I guess I was just surprised that my wife hadn't seen it. Chances are, some of the kids in her neighborhood watched it on their VCR's, and if that's the case, I'm sure my wife would have at least heard the movie as a child since it's probably the loudest movie of all time. If you want the experience of a daycare with much older children but don't want to leave the house, pop The Goonies in. It's an hour and forty minutes of prepubescent boys screaming as loudly as they can. Sometimes they urinate. Sometimes they curse. Now I'm no prude, but with the amount of shits in this movie, I had trouble figuring out who the audience was supposed to be. I don't imagine older children would like it, and I don't think 1980's parents would be too happy with the potty mouths. I don't know. Maybe I am a prude. More offensive than that is the acting of Jonathan Ke Quan, Short Round himself. I can tell you why that kid didn't have a more fruitful acting career--he's fucking annoying. Midway through this movie, I was hoping that scary guy from Temple of Doom would pop out and rip his heart out. And every single scene that features one of his dumb inventions manages to top (or bottom) the previous one. Corey Feldman's annoying in a different way, but the other kids aren't all that bad. Oh, wait. Jeff Cohen's Chunk is obnoxious, too. There's another guy who Hollywood thankfully decided didn't deserve to be in more movies. The guy who played Sloth even got more work than him. Actually, I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel called Goonies 2: Sloth and Chunk Gay It Up. And before you tell me--yes, I am aware that this has a sequel. I don't think my eardrums could tolerate it though. I did like most of the adult actors though. Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi make good bumbling crooks, and the always-fetching Anne Ramsey's as nasty as you'd expect her to be. There's another sequel that should have happened, by the way--Goonies 3: Mama Fratelli's Bedroom Adventures in 3-D. Robert Duvall could have been in that one. Or a Quaid brother. Or both Quaid brothers! That son of a bitch would almost write itself, wouldn't it? Opening credits. A bunch of gratuitous sex scenes. Sloth busting in on Mama Fratelli and Dennis Quaid doing "The Double Kangaroo" and yelping out, "Hey, you guuuuuuyyyyys!" Roll credits while some Cyndi Lauper song plays. Boom! It's a billion dollar idea. This movie is disappointing because in the hands it was in, it really should have ended up a classic adventure story for kids. Instead, it's annoyingly loud, inappropriate, and not nearly as much fun as it should be.