The Goonies. Richard Donner. 1985. 
I bought a blu-ray of Gremlins, and this movie was included. It’s not something I would have considered (re-)watching: I just barely vaguely remember watching it as a teenager and (I think) feeling that it was the lamest thing ever.
But when I’m watching it now, I think… that’s it’s super-lame.
It’s offensively lame. There’s so much shouting. So much drama. So many lines that are meant to be jokes that barely register as such.
There’s some good points. The kids are good. Did all of them go on to become stars? Let’s see… Sean Astin: Check. Josh Brolin: Check. Corey Feldman: Er… I don’t know how to categorise him. Jeff Cohen: No. Ke Huy Quan: I guess not.
That’s a pretty good percentage, though. Let’s call it 50%.
And Anne Ramsey is iconic.
Perhaps I should give it props for having pretty ugly cinematography and design work. I mean, real: The dirt looks dirty, the neighbourhoods looks muddy, and some of the actors’ hair moves.
It’s a charmless exercise: director Richard Donner turns the kids into shrieking ferrets
And it’s a bit on the racist side? But the main problem is that it’s tedious and annoying.
While I did manage to catch bits and pieces over the years (namely the opening of the film), it wasn’t until college that I got introduced to the film in its entirety. And, as many fans often do, it was pitched to me as “the greatest movie ever made!” So I sat there, baffled for 114 minutes that my friends – folks I know well and respect – were so taken by such a boring, surprisingly dull little movie. Even after the film had ended my friends couldn’t really tell me what they liked about the movie. They just…liked it. In fact, all they could do was agree that most of the film was pretty weak.
The first four hours of this movie were pretty annoying, but the last seventeen hours were a bit more exciting. But it’s pretty charmless. Perhaps you have to be twelve to enjoy this.
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