Review by kidchaos1969

After reading the shining reviews for this I picked it up for my nephew on VHS. I'm not sure what the other reviewers are talking about. I mean yes the film is set in a small town in the south, and yes that is a lovely setting to have a film about boys growing up. But that doesn't mean that this film is good. The acting from the kids is horrible, the adults are OK. Anne Ramsey seems like she is not altogether there, often just dawdling in the background. I expect this behavior was due to a lack of direction. Even great actors can falter if there isn't any real direction for them. The pacing was slow and silly. The main plot comes and goes and then when you think the film is finally (thankfully) coming to a close, it goes on for another painful twenty minutes. In those last painful minutes the film tries to deal with death, love, growing up, and disillusionment. What a mess! Maybe back in 1988 some 8 year old thought this was a good movie (by the way, just for the record "The Goonies" isn't a masterpiece either), but this movie would bore almost any kid or adult to tears. Normally I have to really fight to get my nephew to go to bed. But he was glad to turn this movie off before it was finished and hope for better stories in his dreams.