Section: iTunes, iTunes Movie/TV Rentals and Purchases, Reviews
| Release Date: 2010 (original film: 1985) Run Time: 1:53:54 Format: Widescreen Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound MPAA Rating: PG iTunes Price: $9.99 buy, $2.99 rent File Size: 1.61 GB |
The Goonies is my Karate Kid. It’s my Sixteen Candles. It by no means defines my childhood or teen years, but no movie does. I never wanted that in a movie, I just wanted adventure and skeletons and treasure and comedy and promotional videos with Andre the Giant in them. Considering how reasonable my requirements, I’m surprised so few movies met them.
The Goonies did. And it’s one of perhaps half a dozen movies for which I’ll put aside my goings on when I find it showing on a Saturday afternoon. Now, it’s on iTunes, and it’s certainly a movie worth owning.
The Movie
The premise for The Goonies is there simply to set up the adventure. In a poor seaport town, a cold-hearted developer (surprisingly not played by Martin Mull) is seizing and entire neighborhood to destroy the homes and build a golf course. When young Mikey Walsh—leader of a group of misfits who call themselves “The Goonies”—finds a treasure map that ties in with local legend One-Eyed Willy, he sees this as a way to get enough money to save their neighborhood.
The map starts at a seemingly abandoned house, but it’s actually inhabited by the Fratellis, a family of criminals wanted by the law. They, too, learn of the treasure, and seek to get it before the kids do, and silence them in the process. With myriad traps ahead of them and the Fratellis behind them, the Goonies are forced into a wonderfully entertaining and tension-filled adventure that works on just about every level.
The story is fun, but it knows to take itself and its subject seriously. It mostly avoids descending into goofiness, choosing instead to let the situations create the fun while the kids drive us through it. We care about them. We identify with their desire to save a place they love, and I wish I’d been smart enough at their age to know you have to fight to keep your friends together for as long as you can, because eventually it’s a fight you will lose.
We also understand how this group of kids who constantly argue and berate each other could work together so well not only in this particular adventure, but as normal children just trying to grow up with what they have.
The Download
The iTunes download comes with the normal pixelation you expect from an iTunes movie by now, but it’s a bit more troublesome here because of the texture thrown into every scene. The vines, ropes, spider webs, and such—mostly lit by torches and ambient lighting—highlight the limitations.
Cropped section of full screen player, not retouched.
It also doesn’t help that the movie is shot so darkly. That makes sense, since the bulk of it takes place inside of caves and catacombs, but you’ll have some trouble if you’re getting glare on the screen. Consider that on the iPhone and iPad, where it otherwise works better than the computer, but none of it is unwatchable.
The Extras
The octopus is back. That’s really all you need to know. Somewhere before, I saw the scene with the octopus. I don’t know if it was on TV or HBO or what (I didn’t see it in the theater), but I used to argue vehemently with my friends that there was an octopus in this movie at some point. Here, it’s included in the extras, which are a separate download. Seeing it again, I can see why it wasn’t worked back into the movie, but it’s enough for me to finally win that argument.
The extras also feature a “making of” featurette and the full 12-minute version of Cyndi Lauper’s promotional video, “The Goonies ‘r’ Good Enough,” which features appearances by The Bangles and a cavalcade of WWF superstars. I’d pay good money to see that tour, even in 2010.
All of these are available in the Blu-ray release, so the only incentive here is the ease of transfer to Apple’s iDevices. You also miss out on actor commentary, and the board game (!), storyboards, and other packaged bonuses in the physical version.
Conclusion
The Goonies is a movie worth buying simply because it’s so enjoyable. It holds up surprisingly well for a movie released in the mid-‘80s (only the special effects don’t). Kids will like it as much as their parents did back when it was released, and adults will like it not for nostalgic reasons, but because it’s just a well-told, well-paced, and wonderfully acted adventure (it features Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Martha Plimpton, Robert Davi, Anne Ramsey, and many others). If you don’t need all those bonus materials, the iTunes release is well-worth its $10.00 price tag, as it’s a movie you’ll want to keep handy for those Saturday afternoons when you’d rather not be raking.
Buy or rent The Goonies.
Full Story » | Written by Kirk Hiner for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »
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