Review of The Goonies (1985) by Ben R — 02 Oct 2014

Oh, god, this was so bad. I think it could just be an age thing; maybe if I'd seen this when I was really young, or if I'd seen it when it first came out, I would've liked it, but watching it now as an 18-year-old, I almost hate it. I can't quite bring myself to say that I do hate it, because it's just so happy all the time and well-meaning, but I didn't really enjoy watching it.

There's so many things to dislike about it. The visual effects were so bad, and all the sets literally looked like a theme park. The dialogue was pretty awful most of the time, to the point where I was laughing a lot at unintentionally funny parts. The badly written lines were delivered really poorly in most cases, and the characters were mostly unlikable; Mikey was a boring unfunny leader, Chunk was the token fat kid (who did occasionally make some funny expressions), Data was used for some of the most annoying slapstick ever (I'm thinking of when the fist jumped out of his shirt and hit the bad guy), and Mouth was just a prick, honestly.

There were a few scattered bright spots. Near the beginning of the movie, Brandon and Mikey shared a hug, and it was pretty nice. I liked the line said by Mikey's mom, "Let her mother worry about her," when Brandon was making out with Andy. "You were my greatest invention" was a sweet line by Data's father. Having Martha Plimpton is always a plus, and it was cool to see her in a young role; she was also one of the only likable characters. But for the most part, this was kind of the cheesiest movie I've ever seen; it was incredibly over-sentimental, cliche, unfunny, and just bad.