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The Goonies (1985)

The Goonies is one of my favourite films ever. It has been in my favourite four on Letterboxd since I created my account about three years ago. The set up is that Mikey (Sean Astin) and his Goonie friends Chunk (Jeff Cohen), Mouth (Corey Feldman) & Data (Ke Huy Quan) are about to be broken up as Mikey’s mom and dad are being forced to sell the house to property developers. To try and save their home, Mikey goes in search of treasure. They also have to deal with the Fratelli’s who are trying to hide from the police after breaking Jake (Robert Davi) out of jail. 

The film works because of the central four cast members. You totally believe that they are best friends and it would be very sad if they got broken up. Each one of them has a personality which makes them important to the group. Mikey is the leader with a kind heart, Chunk is the comedy one because he is either always eating or looking for something to eat, Mouth is useful cause he can speak Spanish even though he uses it for mischievous effect when translating for Rosalita and Data is the technical one who has a host of gadgets to make life better even though they are usually not very good. Even Josh Brolin some 32 years before he turned purple and wore a bejewelled glove to wipe out half of existence is a likeable person despite being the older brother of Mikey and being a bit of a killjoy at first. 

There are a couple of shots that don't quite work. Having never seen this on the big screen some of the effects have not aged well. One of the ones that I didn't notice was towards the end when rocks are falling into the water and the effect of the water entering disappears quickly and it looks like nothing fell. Also there are a couple of shots where it looks like they are standing in front of a blue/green screen. These are few and far between and more of something that I would only notice watching this on the big screen. The main thing that always bothers me is when Data talks about an octopus and this got cut out of the film and was never filmed but it would have been cool to see but I suppose in 1985 this would have been too expensive to pull of convincingly. The issues are ones that would only have come in my later years because at the time I thought this was a fantastic film and I wished that could have happened to me.

There is very little that has changed in my overall opinion. I think that this is a perfect movie and whilst there is a certain amount of nostalgia that goes into my opinion but I still think that the story is very good, the performances are all very good and it has a fun vibe that is lacking from films nowadays. I know that it might be my age saying that but this sort of film isn't made anymore and there are talks of a sequel but I hope it doesn't come but there is a very real chance that it could undo the goodwill that I have for this film. 


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