The story though quite strange in the beginning played out beautifully in the end. Liked it.

Childhood classic! It gets better every time i watch it... some good work from Andrew Davis... I also love the book... a great picture with a good cast XD When you spend your whole life in a hole the only way you can go is up..

Good adaptation of the book. There are some head-scratching plot holes that the movie throws out to set the stage for its story, stuff that seems too convenient, and a few boring bits—but they're all there in the book, too. Not the movie's fault.

Railroaded into a sort of kids' concentration camp over a pair of missing baseball cleats, a very young Shia Labeouf indiscriminately digs pits in the desert all day, suffering ridicule at the hands of counselors and campers alike. The big lie is that this kind of hard labor builds character for troubled youths, but in reality it's just a cut-rate treasure hunt that pits the kids against each other, their supervisors and the world at large. With maybe one or two exceptions, everyone in this film is a jerk. Those who aren't needlessly cruel are functionally inept. Even Labeouf's bashful lead character eventually lets the stress and grimy heat get to him, lashing out at the only kid lower on the totem pole before eventually, grudgingly, making amends. There's a flashback story about a wild west outlaw and a lost cache of some sort, a dual tragedy that coincidentally connects primary characters through a set of crossed bloodlines, but that subplot is eye-roll bad, both in terms of writing and production. I can remember after-school specials with more conviction. I'm not sure how this thing drew such a recognizable cast, either. Jon Voight plays up a thick cowboy accent as the meanest of the adults, the only memorable performance of the bunch. Sigourney Weaver pops in to ruffle feathers and look grouchy, but her role is superfluous and shallow. Henry Winkler gets about five minutes to putz around as Shia's scatterbrained father. Patricia Arquette appears in the old western scenes, plodding through an absurdly hammy interracial relationship before going rogue and riding off into the sunset. The plot just doesn't produce much more than a cascade of punishment with limited retribution. It's an effort that obviously wants to be quirky and playful, amusing the kids while teaching important life lessons, but doesn't seem capable enough to pull it off.

“I can fix that.” And honestly… this film deserves to be fixed in people’s memories because why does no one talk about it anymore?? Such an underrated Disney film that just gets completely forgotten about, which is criminal. I read the book in school for SATs so this is pure nostalgia for me, and watching it again just hits in that comforting, familiar way. It’s got such a lovely heart to it as well, like yeah it’s a bit weird and quirky, but that’s what makes it so special. The story, the characters, the little emotional moments… it all just works. One of those films that quietly stays with you without making a huge fuss about it.