The Goonies Reviews

The "Goonies" are a hardy bunch of kids, self-described outsiders, who may lose their headquarters because some nasty developers want to raze the home of one of the kids, Austin, to put in a golf course. Austin and his buddies Cohen, Feldman, and Quan, along with Austin's older brother Brolin, discover an old pirate map in an attic storeroom of the doomed house. The band, joined by female cohorts Green and Plimpton, end up in the hideout of outlaw Ramsey and her boys. To escape the nefarious family, the kids duck down a hidden tunnel in the basement and find themselves facing a host of booby traps, skeletons, and riches beyond the dreams of their collective imagination. THE GOONIES is nothing more than cookbook filmmaking: Take a healthy portion of the "Indiana Jones" adventures; add some cute, ultraintelligent kids, their bumbling parents, and a lovable creature along the lines of an E.T.; stir in a generous amount of special effects; and voila, you have a movie. Though obviously aimed at a younger audience, THE GOONIES is packed with four-letter words. Sure kids speak like that, but writer Chris Columbus and director Richard Donner rely on obscenities as a substitution for clever punch lines, tossing in a few sex jokes and a touch of racist humor as well.