The Goonies is a cult film that was first released in 1985 and directed by Richard Donner, while Steven Spielberg and Chris Columbus were responsible for the script.

I am not going to bother trying to outline this entire film here, as you have probably already seen it. If you haven't seen it, then I don't want to give away the plot now. This is one of my favorite movies, and who knows maybe it will end up being one of your favorites as well.

In this film we follow "The Goonies" on their adventures to try to save their town of Astoria from a golf course which is planned by the evil Elgin Perkins, who is of course the father of the local alpha male that we are all supposed to hate. This is all classic 80s teen movie stuff, and I love it. Everything gets started when the Goonies discover an old treasure map in Mikie's attic. His father works at the local museum, and apparently they let employees store old exhibits at home. The map is supposed to lead to "One-Eyed Willie's" secret treasure, which is supposed to be guarded by a large complex of tunnels and traps.

So the Goonies head off in search of the treasure, but they have a bit of a problem in the form of the Fratelli family, who are a crime family recently sprung from jail. The boys run into the Fratellis early on in the search, and soon find themselves pursued by them as they hunt for the treasure.

The Characters

Mikey is played by Sean Astin and he is the unrivaled leader of the Goonies. He doesn't have too much of a schtick like the other characters do. Except for his habit of speaking to "One-Eye Willy" out loud, as if the dead pirate could actually hear him.

Brand was played by Josh Brolin and was Mikey's older brother. Brand doesn't really seem too terribly interested in what is going on, and oddly enough allows his much younger brother to be in control of the expedition. Brand seems to exist only to have a decent reason to drag Stef and Andy along for the ride.

Chunk was played by Jeff Cohen and was meant to be the sterotypical fat kid. All the other kids make fun of him, but deep down he is still one of their best friends. He spends much of the movie entirely separated from the rest of the group, but he comes back in towards the end to help save the day.

Mouth was played by Corey Feldman and was the perfect fast talking weasel. This guy was just like Eddie Haskell for the 80s. He was the perfect gentleman when it came to authority figures, but was an insufferable brat to everyone else. His spanish skills came in useful though, and he was an essential part of the film.

Andy was played by Kerri Green and was the cute girl of the group. She was really just an adorable piece of eye candy. Andy was a cheerleader, and both Brand and the evil Troy Perkins were interested in her. Andy spent most of the movie standing around looking cute, but she did manage to save everyone in the crucial "bone piano" scene.

Stef was played by Martha Plimpton and was probably the best character in the film. She had some obvious issues, many of which were probably brought about by having a best friend who was so much more successful than she was (successful in high school terms anyway). Stef complained about everything, and she did it wonderfully. She also had quite a thing for the much younger character Mouth, but I didn't even realize that until I watched this film again as an adult.

Data was played by Jonathan Ke Quan and was the inventor of the group. Not that his inventions worked very well. He did manage to save the group on one occasion with his "slick shoes".

Trivia, continuity errors, and big gaping plot holes!

This movie was just filled with minor errors and plot holes. Many of them were due to the fact that a lot of the movie was cut before it was released. Much of this material ended up on the DVD, and sometimes alternate versions are shown on television as well.

There are several errors related to the treasure map. The first is the Mikey clears away the glass from the broken map frame two times. The hanger on the back of the map frame would have resulted in the map being sideways, had it been hung up. Then when Mouth translates the map, the spanish words somehow end up rhyming when spoken aloud in english. Finally the musical notes that Andy plays on the "bone piano" scene do not appear on the map before that scene (where were they?)*.

The pirate ship scene is just chock full of mistakes. Andy picks up the doll two times, setting off the trap twice. Later when Andy is forced to walk the plank, we see that her hands are tied, but then they aren't tied while she is falling, but then they are tied once again when she ends up in the water. Soon after this we see Sloth swing down to save Stef and Mouth, except that you can tell that these are actually just mannequins of some sort.

The ending scene references cut scenes at least twice. The most obvious one was where Data tells his parents about the octopus, which wasn't in the film. Then the less obvious one was where Mouth thanks Stef for saving his life, but Stef never saved his life in any of the scenes that actually ended up in the movie.

There were a ton of other little minor glitches and problems. Mikey calls Brand "Josh" in one scene (which is his real name). While props appear, disappear, and move while off camera with a startling regularity.

My Verdict

This is still one of my all time favorite films. But keep in mind that this is a kid's movie, and that you may not enjoy it as much if you see it for the first time at the age of 35. Rumors have long circulated about there being a possible sequel to this film, but it hasn't happened yet. The latest rumors say that they are going to have all the kids come back as adults to do the second one. I certainly hope not, as that would have a totally different feel, and some of the kids haven't acted in years, so they may be out of practice. Plus, I really enjoy my image of a sixteen year old Kerri Green and I have no desire to see what she looks like now.

* It's a knick knack says that I am wrong about the notes. I am going to have to watch the film again and double check that one.

The Goonies was an arcade game produced by Konami in 1986.

The game was a Nintendo Vs. Unisystem game, but it did not actually use the VS. hardware. Instead a daughtercard containing its own processor and roms plugged into the VS. motherboard completely bypassing all the Vs. hardware. This game was also available for the Play Choice 10 hardware, which it used normally.

The Goonies has the distinction of being the only Vs. game not to be be released for the NES system. (The sequel Goonies 2 was released for Nes but not for VS.) The reason it was never ported was because the other Vs. games were all originally written for hardware almost identical to the NES, this game ran on a different processor.

Gameplay

This is an adventure platformer, where the object of the game is to save your friends from the evil Fratelli gang. Eventually you must brave "One-Eyed-Willy's" pirate ship to get the treasure and escape with your lives.

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