THE GOONIES: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1985) Warner Home Video

Richard Donner’s The Goonies (1985) arrived just in time for a particularly special epoch in my life; that, being the moment just before puberty – and the good sense God gave a lemon – kicked in. Thus, the adventure/comedy yarn, dedicated to a troop of prepubescent misanthropes from the wrong side of the tracks, who discover excitement and riches on their own terms, was precisely the sort of adolescent daydream to richly fulfill my own teenage fancy. Not so much in the intervening decades, as the movie’s shortcomings appear to stand in relief of its virtues. It’s still a thoroughly fun and invigorating bit of blarney, with a relatively articulate screenplay by Chris Columbus (from a story by Steven Spielberg), and with a solid cast of young moppets and goofy-looking teen talent, Josh Brolin, Sean Astin, and Corey Feldman among them, soon to graduate to bigger and better things. If you saw The Goonies in your late childhood to early teens, you likely have retained a soft spot for it in both your heart and head, the Astoria Oregon coastal setting, with its craggy bluffs, hillside caverns and sunken galleons, lost to a hidden archaeological past, vaguely reminiscent of Spielberg’s more memorable (and more maturely situated) first outing with Indiana Jones; 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dumbing down the quest for the kiddie sect does present its share of challenges as the soft-hewn boy flesh on tap is a bit of a disconnect with the athletic escapades where more masculine brawn and balls would have likely triumphed, rather than merely sufficed. Be that as it may, The Goonies was a big hit for Donner and Spielberg – another feather in each creator’s cap, and a marketing bonanza for Warner Bros. – the studio distributing the picture.

Chalking the soundtrack full of mid-80’s pop artists like Cyndi Lauper, REO Speedwagon and The Bangles was arguably another shrewd maneuver, guaranteed – if nothing else – to sell a lot of vinyl and tapes. Interesting to note Lauper’s ‘The Goonies R Good Enough’ was not yet a hit single until after the movie had wrapped; her brief appearance on the ‘tellie’ performing the supposed ‘music video’ a post-production consideration that perfectly dovetailed into the movie’s general release. Also of curiosity; David Grusin’s orchestral score, borrowing heavily from Max Steiner’s cues for 1948’s The Adventures of Don Juan, and, to include the memorable ‘Fratelli Chase’ was omitted from the album release, and would remain unheard, apart from the movie’s integrated soundtrack, for the next 25 years – despite being exploited in trailers to promote 1987’s Innerspace and 1994’s Guarding Tess. Shooting The Goonies proved something of a double-edged sword for Donner, who could certainly appreciate his pint-sized actors for their unbridled energy and charisma, but frequently found himself doing double duty as both director and ‘lion tamer’ of this ‘unruly brood.

Donner also shared the production with Spielberg who, apart from producing the picture, also offered his hand and advice on how to manage the young stars. Shooting lasted 5 months, with an additional 6-weeks post-dubbing. In the editing process, several sequences were scrapped, leaving a thinly veiled reference to an ‘octopus near the end, vaguely mysterious as no octopus ever appears in the movie. Production took full advantage of the Oregon locations distinctly to feature several landmarks, including the Clatsop County Jail, later converted into a museum which currently houses memorabilia from The Goonies and other movies produced locally. Virtually all of the underground ‘cavern’ sequences were shot on sound stages back at Warner Bros. Burbank studio; Donner and his production designer, Rube Goldberg, building a full-sized pirate galleon, half submerged in the indoor tank on Stage 16; one of the largest sound stages in the world. The set was so enormous, the initial reaction from the cast elicited cheers of awe. In all, The Goonies is ambitious picture-making of the Donner/Spielberg caste, imbued with each man’s then prevailing sense of wonderment for the implausible. Lest we remember, Donner is the fellow who proved a man could fly in the original Superman (1978), while Spielberg, again as producer, had managed to tap into his own invulnerable prepubescent terrors with Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984). So, The Goonies, with its nods to pirate gold, fortune and glory, and, a hand-crafted mythology a la the Pirates of the Caribbean ilk, was precisely up Donner and Spielberg’s alley.

If the tale of poor kids, unearthing an old treasure map to spare their beloved homes from foreclosure and the wrecking ball, fell just shy of expectations, the blame squarely rested on Donner’s diminutive ‘stars of tomorrow’, as yet, not fully seasoned to bear up under the weight of Columbus’ uber-witty screenplay, asking more of them than they could ostensibly deliver. Out of the mouths of babes only works if the babes believe what they are saying, and, at times, the words emanating from Brolin, Astin and Feldman, read too much like scripted dialogue for which both the appropriate punctuation and conviction is lacking. Nevertheless, The Goonies effortlessly massages that predictable bent of a Spielberg adolescent actioner, with lightly peppered sexual innuendos of the John Landis/Animal House (1978) vein where tongue-in-cheek references to male genitalia, looking up girl’s skirts and down their tops abound. Thus, in hindsight, The Goonies appears to straddle a curious chasm; not quite the light-hearted and innocent kiddie flick of yore, and yet, not entirely the forthright ‘adult’ slant for swashbuckling adventure. The kids in this movie are wiser than their years and the ‘horror’ aspects that occasionally intrude are of the more urbane flavoring, eschewing the typical ‘in your face’ scare fest, which has since become not only ‘the norm’ but something of a ‘standard’ (I use this term loosely, as ‘standard’ implies there are basic time-honored criteria to be met).

After decades of sanitized and Disney-fied representations of teenagers and their parents, both behaving as though to have been perpetually stunted in a Pollyanna-esque time warp, Spielberg and Donner’s take on children at the cusp of becoming very awkward young adults is, if not more enlightened, than certainly more on the mark.  The kids here incorporate their fractured vulgarities heard and reinterpreted from their interaction with adults. So ‘shit’ happens – a lot – in The Goonies. Spielberg and Donner are working with archetypes here: the fat kid, the Asian Brainiac/gadget master, the slightly elder ‘tough’ brother, and a couple of nondescript girls – fit mostly for the rescuing (from bats, herein) and sucking face with this boy brood. Along the way, they encounter a motley band of brothers overseen by one greasy and repugnant harridan (a cross between Shelley Winters’ sneering performance as Ma Goggin in 1977’s Pete’s Dragon meets the killer brood of backwoods bruisers from TV’s The X-Files infamous Season 4 episode – ‘Home’). Keeping things lighter, though still with a sincere air of danger, the boys indulge their curiosity on a trek beneath their isolated town, deep into the crooks, nooks and crannies of an ever-evolving labyrinth with set pieces devoted to the booby-trap mélange seen in both Raiders of the Lost Ark, and its follow-up, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). It is too easy to dismiss The Goonies as Spielberg’s patchwork of leftover oddities culled from other inspired works both within and without his own canon. And yet, the transparencies are plain and obvious to anyone with eyes, memory, and, a Blu-ray player.

What remains refreshing about The Goonies is Donner and Spielberg’s respect for childhood in all its varying and sincerely flawed forms, and, his frankness in allowing kids to be ‘kids’ - in a sense - which is to say, far more knowing of the world that surrounds than their adult counterparts ever give them credit. The other rewarding aspect of the picture is its roller-coaster ride mentality that, with all the verve of a Robert Altman for overlapping dialogue, throws so much thrills, chills, chuckles and SFX at the screen, one is immediately taken on the best ‘dark ride’ voyage where, even more miraculously, nothing about the journey ever appears deliberately contrived and/or rushed, or even blown out of proportion. Given the implausible nature of the story at hand, this is saying a great deal for Donner and Spielberg’s ability to make meaning from myth and lend credence to chaos.  Even so, The Goonies just feels a wee bit too clever and/or contrived for its own good – trading on its high energy, but without the various saccharine-infused respites found in, say, E.T. - The Extraterrestrial (1982).

Our story begins in Astoria, Oregon, in ‘Goon Docks’ – a coastal village in which various inhabitants are in grave danger of losing their homes to an encroaching country club. Forlorn, a group of children – nicknamed ‘the Goonies’ gather for their final weekend together. The brood includes idealist, Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin), his elder brother, Brandon (Josh Brolin), the resourceful, Richard ‘Data’ Wang (Jonathan Ke Huy Quan), Clark ‘Mouth’ Devereaux (Corey Feldman), and, chubby and accident-prone, Lawrence ‘Chunk’ Cohen (Joe Cohen). As the boys are inquisitive and bored, they eventually find their mischief in rummaging through the Walsh family’s attic where they come upon a rare doubloon and a map professing the location to One-Eyed Willy’s infamous pirate ship, rumored to still be laden with treasure. The brood elects to keep Brandon in the dark regarding their ‘discovery’. However, Brandon soon makes chase, accompanied by Andrea Theresa ‘Andy’ Carmichael (Kerri Green) – the girl who is just crazy about him, and, her friend, Stephanie Steinbrenner (Martha Plimpton). Arriving at an abandoned restaurant on the coast, the goonies quickly learn the place is a hideout for the Fratelli crime family: Francis (Joe Pantoliano), Jake (Robert Davi) and their disreputable matriarch, Mama (Anne Ramsey). The goonies also discover a tunnel beneath the restaurant. But Chunk is almost immediately taken prisoner by the Fratellis and imprisoned with their deformed, younger brother, Lotney ‘Sloth’ (John Matuszak). Ironically, these two disparate characters bond. Sloth frees them both and Chuck telephones the police, pursuing the Fratellis who are, of course, after the goonies.

Led by Brandon, the goonies sidestep an assortment of pseudo- lethal booby traps while remaining several crucial steps ahead of the Fratellis. Arriving at the underwater grotto where Willy's pirate ship, the Inferno, is moored, the goonies unearth the treasure, but are intercepted by the Fratellis, who are determined to rid themselves of these novice fortune hunters by making each and every one of them walk the plank. Mercifully, Chunk and Sloth arrive in a calculated ambush that forces the Fratellis to flee. However, they make the fatal error of seizing the riches from Willy’s scales – earlier cautioned against by Mikey. This sets off Willy’s booby trap, the grotto disintegrating all around them. With Sloth's help, the goonies and Fratellis narrowly escape its demise, resurfacing on Astoria's beach where they are reunited with their respective families and the police. The Fratellis are arrested – all except Sloth, whom Chunk now invites to become part of his family. As the goonies attempt to describe their adventure to their parents, the Walshes’ housekeeper, Rosalita (Lupe Ontiveros) discovers Mikey’s marble bag overflowing in gemstones not seized by the Fratellis. Mikey's father (Keith Walker) ebulliently tears up the foreclosure papers, even as the Inferno, having broken loose from the grotto, now appears to be sailing on its own, off into the distant horizon.

The Goonies is a picture of its time. Newer generations, not unlike my own, may continue to find modicums of inspiration and joy, depending on their age and picture-going savvy. I feel genuinely sorry for today’s child – afforded every technological luxury, but the lack of wherewithal on how best to compartmentalize, manage and otherwise appreciate and place all of this digital hoopla into the proper perspective. The Goonies, with its dated premise and impressions of just being a kid caught in a daydream from that glorious epoch before the internet and cell phones made mindless, navel-gazing idiots of us all, does not quite hold up once the viewer leaves his/her short pants behind. But it does continue to harbor nuggets of pleasure that can afford the first-time viewer of any age breathless admiration for Spielberg and Donner’s ambitions to create one hell of a good thrill ride. I miss the 1980’s. It was the best time to be a teenager in a decade of such diverse movie-going opportunities to be spellbound in the dark. Homogenizing the cinema palette since has led to more technically accomplished works for sure, and yet, strangely lacking a sense of ballast, character and whimsy to make them half as memorable as movies like The Goonies. No – this isn’t high art. But it remains an awful lot of fun of the inimitable Spielberg ‘silly/adult’ vintage, made with a fervent flair to stir the enjoyment of the audience with a broad stick – if only in fits and sparks – to achieve that level of entertainment worthy of the capital ‘E’!

Shot photochemically in 35mm anamorphic Panavision, Warner Home Video marks The Goonies 35^th anniversary with a new 4K scan from an original camera negative, color graded in HDR10 for a truly eye-popping experience. Colors crisp up over the old Blu-ray from 2010. Fine detail abounds, with exceptions granted to the occasional optical and inherent ‘soft focus’ around the edges of Panavision frame. Film grain is light and very organic in its appeal. Contrast yields some excellent shadow delineation that, on occasion, still leans to a dark gray. But spectral highlights are more vibrant. Lossless 5.1 DTS advances ever so slightly with a more expansive presence in general, crisp dialogue, capped off by atmospheric nods in the sides and rear channels for SFX and music cues. Warner has not included any extras on the 4K disc, but has deigned to stuff this set with a copy of the 2010 Blu which has it all. Please note – the Blu-ray contains the same 1080p transfer from 2010 – not this 4K upgrade! But it does have all the old extras; a ‘hidden treasure’ picture-in-picture viewing mode, audio commentary from Donner and select cast, a brief ‘making of’ featurette, several deleted scenes, Cyndi Lauper’s music video and theatrical trailer. Bottom line: The Goonies looks wonderful in UHD. For those who already own the 2010 Blu-ray, some of the improvements here will seem marginal at best. But on larger monitors, this 4K upgrade easily bests any home video incarnation previously made available. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

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