The Goonies (1985) Corey Feldman, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton, Jonathan Ke Quan Movie Review

The Goonies (1985)   4/54/54/54/54/5


The Goonies (1985) - Corey Feldman, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton, Jonathan Ke Quan

Feldman & Co are anything but Sloth Like

With the likelihood of them having to move as their parents struggle to meet the payments on their home, brothers Mikey (Sean Astin) and Brandon Walsh (Josh Brolin) along with their best friends Chunk (Jeff Cohen), Mouth (Corey Feldman) and Data (Jonathan Ke Quan) discover a treasure map and head out on an adventure in the hope of finding unfound riches to help save their home. But with a group of bad guys, the Fratelli's, on their trail and underground tunnels full of traps the adventure is beyond their wildest dreams.

Take the adult excitement of an Indiana Jones movie, place an incompetent bunch of slap stick baddies in it and make the main stars a bunch of children and what you get, "The Goonies" one of the most popular children adventure movies to have come out of the 80s. It mixes all those elements and more delivering a fantastical, imaginative ride of an adventure which hits peaks of excitement and drama in equal measures whilst also living long on in your memory after it has ended making stars out of its cast including Corey Feldman, Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen and of course John Matuszak as Sloth

John Matuszak as Sloth in The Goonies (1985)

The storyline to "The Goonies" comes from no other than Steven Spielberg and adapted into a screenplay by the equally talented Chris Columbus is a mixture of children's comedy, pirate adventure and full on magical fantasy. It is spell binding and captivating delivering one amazing moment of adventure and escapism after another whilst all the time you have the baddies on your trail. For anyone who remembers letting their imagination go crazy as a child in a play world of fantasy, this is it brought to life on the screen which takes what you imagined but makes it 100 times bigger and better.

But whilst the fantasy takes over there is purpose to all this adventure, these kids are just not having fun they are trying to discover a lost treasure to help their parents from having the family home repossessed. The whole time whilst we get all this adventure and glorious fantasy it remains tied to why these kids are risking life and limb through undiscovered underground caverns full of ingenious booby traps. Plus don't forget those baddies who are there ramping up the excitement with the hideous deformed gentle giant Sloth.

Adding to this is director Richard Donner who captures everything about those old swashbuckling adventures and transfers it into an 80s children's movie. He never allows it too lull delivering excitement, comedy and nostalgia in almost every single scene and more importantly doesn't deliver a dumbed down stupid children's movie. It is all very clever and well thought out to make it almost completely believable. Even at 110 minutes long "The Goonies" never once gets boring and in fact it is one movie which could have gone on and on with out becoming tedious.

Plus "The Goonies" has a plethora of wonderful characters from the chubby one 'Chunk' played by Jeff Cohen, Sean Astin as Mickey Walsh the leader of The Goonies, Jonathan Ke Quan as the eccentric inventor 'Data' and of course Corey Feldman as the funny 'Mouth'. But then there are also the adult characters such as the baddies Jake, Francis and Mama Fratelli all wonderfully played by Robert Davi, Joe Pantoliano and Anne Ramsey. Plus who can forget John Matuszak as Lotney 'Sloth' Fratelli. It is a weird and wonderful bunch and more importantly each of these actors young or old put in great performances.

What this all boils down to is that "The Goonies" quite rightly deserves all the praise it gets. It is pure adventure, comedy and excitement delivering those fantasies which you harboured yourself as children but making them even more amazing on the big screen. It doesn't matter whether your a child, young adult or supposedly too old to enjoy children's movies because there is something for everyone in this fun fantasy.


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