Goat is in theaters now.
A world where anthropomorphic animals live their lives much like our own is such a perennial setting for animation that Goat is opening while the very well-received – and insanely financially successful – Zootopia 2 is still in theaters. And it’s not even the only animated animal film with a basketball focus, given there are two animation/live-action hybrid Space Jam movies. So with that burden on the back, it’s perhaps even more gratifying for it to turn out to be an entertaining, lively and terrifically animated film in its own right.
Our hero here is Will Harris (voiced by Stranger Things’ Caleb McLaughlin), a young goat who is not just a massive fan of roarball – this film’s name for basketball – but also dreams of making it as a professional player himself, despite being one of the so-called “smalls,” i.e., animals who, quite literally, don’t seem to be built for the game.
But after videos of him go viral when he plays a game of streetball against an actual pro (Aaron Pierre’s amusingly named horse, Mane Attraction) and more than holds his own, Will finds himself on his beloved hometown team, the Thorns – even though he’s basically been hired as a publicity stunt by team owner Flo (Jenifer Lewis), with no one intending for him to ever actually play in a game.
Goat plays things very safe on the story side. Is there a point where circumstances lead Will to be called off the bench and enter a game? Does he then show just how great he is to the fans? Can he and his teammates work through their personal issues to actually become a cohesive unit? Who’s to say!?
Yes, this is a kids/family animated movie, but we’ve still seen many in recent years with some interesting and surprising storylines or plot points. Yet there’s something to be said for telling a predictable/traditional story well, and while Goat is going down a rather safe path, there’s a lot of wit, charm and warmth to be found in the way that writers Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley (working from a story by Nicolas Curcio and Peter Chiarelli), director Tyree Dillihay, and the animators take us along on Will’s journey.
Part of that is accomplished by giving the film a near co-lead in the form of Thorns team captain Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union), a black panther who’s a roarball legend but now facing getting older and criticism that she’s long past her prime. There are a lot of good scenes for Jett on her own and also between her and Will, as she begins to bond with him despite her initial dismissive nature towards her new young teammate, and the film gives the two a well done and properly emotional rapport.
McLaughlin and Union both bring a lot of heart to their vocal performances, with Union also adding the right touch of world-weary cynicism (and a touch of narcissism) to Jett, who’s used to dominating the game in a way that’s made her a bad teammate over the years. And they’re aided by a strong group of supporting players comprising their teammates, including Nicola Coughlan as the ostrich Olivia Burke, David Harbour as the rhino Archie Everhardt, and Nick Kroll as Komodo dragon Modo Olachenko, along with Patton Oswalt as their coach, proboscis monkey Dennis Cooper, all of whom get some funny spotlight moments. It was amusing, but made sense, to learn via the closing credits that the only one of these characters that never really pops comedically or feels especially interesting vocally, the Thorns’ giraffe player, Lenny Williamson, was the one voiced by the non-actor in the cast, Stephen Curry, who is one of Goat’s producers.
But where Goat truly shines and stands out is in its animation. Sony Pictures Animation has put out a lot of impressive – and very impressive-looking – films in recent years, including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequel, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, and KPop Demon Hunters. The work of Sony’s extremely talented designers and animators continues to impress with Goat, which boasts some fantastic visuals throughout.
Will and his friends live in the part of their world called Vineland, which is packed with wonderful details. Rather than simply having these animals live in a town just like our own, or do something cute and old-school cartoon-esque like put a regular-looking house up in a tree, Vineland has a vibe all of its own. It’s as if branches, trees, bushes, and foliage were actively intertwined with the architecture in our world. The park court Will plays at has massive branches around the hoop, while leaves line the walls of restaurants and homes. It’s a cool mashup of things that look built with nature and feels like a vibrant and creative spin on this sort of “wild animals in suburbia” animated scenario.
And then there are the other lands the team travels to for their games, and specifically the courts they play on. Because while roarball’s rules are pretty much one-to-one with basketball, when it comes to the environments these teams play in, things get much trickier and outright dangerous. One court is covered in stalagmites bursting forth from the ground to navigate, while another is covered in ice that begins to crack and separate beneath the feet of the teams, revealing the freezing water below, even as the game keeps going. And then there’s the game that looks like what would happen if Darth Vader set up a basketball court on Mustafar, with flowing magma beneath the volcanic rock the teams are playing on, adding a suitably operatic vibe to the situation. It’s all awesome to behold, with high-energy, kinetic motion to the games themselves that help further invest you in Will and his teammates in classic underdog fashion.
Goat also has a lot of fun with the idea that these characters truly are animals, not just people who look like animals. While they walk on two legs, we soon learn that these goats, horses, panthers and other creatures also still run on all fours when the situation calls for it. And lots of fun sight gags come from how they still act and behave as we might expect them to act in our world in certain scenarios, from how Jett drinks from a bowl like a cat, to the easily panicked Olivia carrying a bucket of sand that she can bury her head in when she’s freaking out. (Yes, ostriches don’t actually bury their heads in sand; it just can look that way, but a good gag based on a common animal misconception is still a good gag!)
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