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The first thing I was thinking when "Goonies" really kicked into gear was: This is the daydream of an adventure-loving preadolescent boy, full of pirates, bloodthirsty villains, and exotic twists and turns in an underground maze full of booby traps. It's sort of "Indiana Jones" for the kids as well as the adults.
The Goonies (a band of young boys) are spending their last weekend hanging around their hometown, before it's razed for yuppie developers. Then Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin) uncovers a treasure map hidden in an old painting, and becomes obsessed with finding the lost treasure of the pirate One-Eyed Willie. With that treasure, they could save their town.

But the hunt for treasure sends the Goonies, Mikey's long-suffering teenage brother (Josh Brolin), and a pair of teenage girls (Kerri Green and Martha Plimpton) into dangerous proximity to the murderous fugitives, the Fratellis. With the Fratellis on their tail, the Goonies are determinedly navigating the underground, booby-trap-infested tunnels that lead to the treasure -- or to a very nasty demise.

The stolidly mature among you may scoff at the improbability of the story, but who cares? This is obviously a fantasy story, harkening back to pirate treasure and childhood adventures, thwarting the evil guys. The classic formulae are what makes it so fun. "Goonies" is like "Indiana Jones" in the sense that it's action-filled, with nasty villains, elaborate booby-traps, and a plotline that is wonderfully improbable. This is just fun. The sets are amazingly complex, full of stone tunnels and enormous waterfalls full of money, thin little bridges and a bone piano that causes the floor to collapse.

Sean Astin (yes, this is THAT Sean Astin, the guy currently starring as Samwise Gamgee in "Lord of the Rings") is endearing and very convincing as Mikey, the gutsy boy that could. Josh Brolin is also good as his overbearing but nice brother; the other Goonies include the incredibly funny Corey Feldman as "Mouth" (the scene where he weirds out the cleaning lady is priceless), comic relief Jeff Cohen as "Chunk" who bumbles from one misadventure to another, and Jonathan Ke Quan (who was also in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom") as gadget-obsessed "Data," a kid riddled all over with homemade inventions that occasionally save the heroes' behinds.

Though this film was made in the 1980s, it's aged extremely well -- now there is affection on top of the original liking for it. It's a funny, entertaining thrillride with pirates, villains, treasure and a band of quirky heroes. Great fun.