The Goonies

Do you ever wish you were a kid again? Do you ever feel like simply walking out on the stresses of your current job, the bills that need paying, the garden that needs attending, the dinners that need organising? We would all love to just let go of our responsibilities and let someone else take care of them, someone like your mother who did so when you were young, allowing you to let your imagination run wild and go on those crazy adventures with your best friends, the friends that you still hang around with now but share cafe lattes with instead. The next best thing to this is probably reliving your childhood through nostalgia or the eyes of other children. The Goonies does both and more.

When the parents of a group of young adventurers known as the Goonies are about to have their homes taken away from them, the kids must find a way to come up with the money to buy back their property from the ruthless developers. When all hope is lost, Mikey (Sean Astin) rekindles the story of One-Eyed Willie, an infamous pirate who sailed the seas and took a fortune in treasures to a secret location, never to be found.

The Goonies, never ones to pass up an opportunity for adventure, no matter the danger, venture on a journey to find Willie's fabled hidden treasure in order to rescue their homes. Their trek comes to an abrupt halt though, when the group crosses paths with the Fratelli family, a trio of bumbling criminals led by their unloving mother. When Chunk gets caught and reveals the Goonies' mission, the Fratelli mob are soon on the trail of the meddling kids to get the treasure themselves.

With Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon) behind the camera and Steven Spielberg as the producer, how could this movie possibly go wrong? With a then well known cast of kids featuring the likes of Sean Astin, Corey Feldman and Josh Brolin and the talents of Joe Pantaliano (The Matrix) and Robert Davi, who has a none too bad singing voice, the nostalgia kicks in ever more. However, not even the quality of the movie could save this DVD from the recent Warner Bros cost cutting exercise.

The dreaded NTSC transfer in a PAL region has reared its cheap head again. What was to be a wonderful DVD to enjoy has turned into yet another suboptimal resolution abomination that restricts itself to the multi-format capable market. Anyone who condones this marketing decision should disclose the amount it took to buy them out.

With that rant out of the way, this disc exhibits a beautifully clean transfer that renders the image like we've never seen before. Many a fan of this movie would only remember a VHS version or a rare TV broadcast. This widescreen 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced transfer presents the movie in a new light to old and new fans alike. The widescreen composition show so much more image that brings out the adventure in a grander light.

Sharpness and detail are exemplary, with colour rendition up to what we would normally expect for a 1984 film. Black levels are good, with enough shadow detail to provide a clearly defined image throughout the underground scenes. If you're lucky enough to have a progressive scan DVD player and display device then the NTSC transfer may not bother you.

The audio here is a newly remastered 5.1 soundtrack that provides a dynamicism that your worn out VHS copies would barely scratch the surface of.

The surrounds here are aggressive when called upon, filling the room with an expanse that even the tightest of confines within the movie can produce. The subwoofer gets a workout that even Aerobics Oz Style would be proud of, providing some substance to the now obvious foam boulders in use. Dialogue is very good and overall the upgrade the audio received is most welcomed, even if it is not in the league of the remix Donner provided us in Superman.

There's a nice collection of extras included on this DVD, beginning with a different approach to an audio commentary. Most of the original cast is back, including director Richard Donner. The approach here shows footage from the actual recording of the commentary, with the film playing in a PIP window switching to the film itself and back again. Back and forth we go throughout the entire movie using the branching feature of DVD. Whilst interesting, the commentary itself isn't much more than a nostalgic look at the movie for the cast themselves and any really interesting tidbits about the movie are few and far between.

A collection of three deleted scenes are presented here in non-anamorphic form, showing an in-store scuffle, the Goonies about to go into the restaurant where the Fratellis are hiding and a giant squid toward the finale. There is also probably the shortest Making Of ever recorded, lasting a whopping seven minutes and featuring some pretty bad video footage to boot, and a theatrical trailer tacked on for good measure.

The Cyndi Lauper music video goes for longer than some of the other extras combined on this disc and features a cast of wrestlers the likes of Lou Albano, Nikolai Volkov, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Andre the Giant, The Iron Shiek and the Fabulous Moolah (I can't believe I remembered their names) along with a very quick cameo from Spielberg himself. Very nostalgic (there's that word again).

If any DVD was worthy of Easter eggs, this disc was it. Sadly it doesn't have any. Carry on...

What an enjoyable time spent in front of the TV. Don't sit on the couch for this one, get on the floor with your favorite kiddie food and enjoy this movie again. Let your mind truly leave this world and its problems and enjoy a great movie. Too bad we're deprived of a proper PAL transfer.

Are you a Goonie too?