Rent The Goonies (1985)

Like watching an episode of Scooby Doo without the close attention to character development - The Goonies review by KW

A group of really loud and annoying teenagers who live by the sea improbably discover a treasure map in the attic of their soon-to-be-demolished home and set off in search of lost loot pursued through oddly well-lit underground caverns by the Fratelli family of gangsters.

I was 17 when this came out and I stayed away because it seemed too loud and brash. It really is too, and the temptation to turn off in the first few minutes bordered on overpowering, largely because Corey Feldman and Jeff Cohen seem to be locked in a game of trying to out-funny each other. The trouble for me was that they played their roles as funny. They might as well have looked into the camera and said "Aren't I hilarious?" and I could have answered back that I have seen funnier performances on the ten o'clock news. A brief dip into the blu-ray commentary in which all 7 principal actors appear, reveals that actually they were playing themselves. I managed 3 minutes of commentary before I could stand no more.

Fortunately, the action soon hots up and the irritating hysterics are easier to take in the land of pirates and buried treasure to which we are headed. As a film, this sits somewhere between cinema and theme park ride - none of these characters are anything but types and we are not really being asked to care about them as people but simply go along for the ride. It's like watching an episode of Scooby Doo but without the close attention to character development (sidebar - Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the series that ran for two seasons from 2010 is genius).

Perhaps the appearance of the rubber-faced Sloth character helped me a long because despte everything, I enjoyed The Goonies. I don't like people talking whilst movies is on, but if you're watching at home that might actually help with the first half hour, after which the Goonies is a fairly enjoyable, entirely derivative romp.

"1632... what is that, a year or something?" - The Goonies review by dtower

To me, "The Goonies" is Saturday. It's rainy Saturday mornings, overcast Saturday afternoons and dark Saturday nights.

When I was young, I wanted to be one of The Goonies. I wanted to have an adventure. I wanted to have a group of friends who quipped and laughed and looked out for one another. I wanted to outsmart a group of criminals. I wanted to live in Astoria. I wanted to have a soundtrack as good as Dave Grusin's playing in the background of my exploits.

It was a film with fizz running along the top of the TV because I'd played the VHS so many times. It was a film where I could feel the drizzly Oregon weather - the chill, the wet. It was a film that showed me what childhood should be like. It was a film that, when it was over, made the real world seem mundane, colourless, ill-equipped to hold the potential of that kind of adventure within it.

It was the feeling of Saturday.

Still is.