FINDING 'OHANA (2021)
Tagline: Home is where 'ohana is.
(Action, Adventure, Comedy) [PG]
In this one, a mother and her two children are staying in rural
O’ahu for the summer. Upon arriving they discover their grandfather is going to
lose the family's land. After discovering the grandfather’s journal the younger
daughter, Pili (played by Kea Peahu) sets out to discover the treasure the
journal mentions.
First off, the main reason that I watched this movie was because of Ke Huy Quan.
He is best known for his role as “Data” in THE GOONIES and “Short Round” in
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. Ke Huy Quan hadn’t done any acting before
this in 19 years. So of course, as a huge fan of THE GOONIES, I was definitely
going to check out anything he was in that looked remotely interesting. This
movie goes out of its way to reference THE GOONIES and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, even mentioning “Slick Shoes” by name. We also get a brief shot
of the “Pinchers of Power”.
Having said all that, Ke Huy Quan’s role in the movie is
pretty short. The main actors are all fairly inexperienced, but we do get some
veteran talents in this. Kelly Hu probably most famous for THE SCORPION KING
plays the mom Leilani. Branscombe Richmond is also in this as the grandfather.
Oddly enough, he is also probably most famous for THE SCORPION KING. Even Owen
Vaccaro who is young but has an impressive resume gets a big role in this as
Casper. Not the friendly ghost, his name is just Casper. Owen is best known for
his work in the DADDY’S HOME series, and THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN IT’S WALLS. Lindsay
Watson does a pretty good job in this movie but as I mentioned earlier, she is
one of the main cast that just hasn’t been in much just yet. Overall the acting
isn’t great, but for this kind of movie, it’s fine. If you went into this
looking for an acting master class you went to the wrong genre.
The first half of this movie feels “very” goonies only without the 80’s stars
and more corny jokes. However, the script isn’t totally bad and there is an “un-Goonies”
like a supernatural conclusion at the end. Cinematically there really isn’t much
special here outside of some of the cooler cave scenes, but it’s a pretty fun
heartfelt film. There are also some flashbacks in this movie that use the ANT-MAN style with the dialog in the flashbacks being voiced by the person doing the flashback (the most famous example is Michael Peña doing this as Luis.)
Where this thing goes wrong is underutilizing Ke Huy Quan, but the scenes he is in are fine. The movie is also too damn long. I mean why? Why did this need to take 2 hours? It didn’t. I would have cut out some of the unnecessary dialog and probably the entire opening scene.
Overall though this is a pretty decent family film with an interesting and nostalgic storyline. It’s basically the Hawaiian GOONIES only with one actual Goonie who isn’t involved in the main storyline.
I give this thing a 4 out of 7.
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