Animals on the Court: A Review of Goat

 directed by Tyree Dillihay

written by Aaron Buchsbaum, Teddy Riley, Nicolas Curcio and Peter Chiarelli

Since Sony Pictures Animation basically rewrote the animation rulebook with 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, they've just gone from strength to strength with one outstanding film after another, with last year's KPop Demon Hunters adding to their Oscar trophy cabinet with not just one but two Oscars, including their first-ever Best Original Song Oscar. Their offbeat story choices and their now signature animation style have pretty much cemented their position as one of the animation industry's major players.

As a result, I guess it's inevitable that they'd eventually come up with a movie that was basically just "OK."

The film Goat, the title of which is basically a play on the sports acronym GOAT or "Greatest Of All Time" centers around an anthropomorphic young goat named Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin), who lives in a Zootopia-like world populated by anthopormorphic animals, and who aspires to play roarball, his world's equivalent of basketball, albeit a much more extreme version. His big dream is to play for the Vineland Thorns like his hero, Jett Filmore (Gabrielle Union). He's a talented shooter, but as a "small" animal, he'll never be accepted in a league where only the "big" thrive.   This changes, however, when a video where he plays streetball and scores against one of roarball's most respected players, Mane Event (Aaron Pierre) goes viral, and Thorns team owner Flo (Jenifer Lewis), sees an opportunity to spruce up the Thorns, that have yet to win a championship (called a "Claw" here) basically because Jett is a complete ballhog.  Flo recruits will as a sixth player, and he joins Jett and her teammates, the giraffe Lenny (Steph Curry, yes THAT Steph Curry), rhinoceros Archie (David Harbour), ostrich Olivia (Nicola Coughlan), and komodo dragon Modo (Nick Kroll). It's an uphill battle for Will, who is constantly bullied by Jett and who can't even count on the proboscis monkey coach Dennis (Patton Oswalt), so he basically has to make his own breaks. Through his sheer grit and plucky spirit, however, Will may yet show the Thorns the value of teamwork, and take them into uncharted territory.

As that little blurb suggests, the film is basically loaded with sports underdog movie cliches, and is completely okay with that. So am I, to be frank, especially since they bring their patented visual flair to the game, and some pretty enjoyable voice acting. The animal world this crowd of animals moves in is no Zootopia clone; it's rough and tumble and pretty "extreme" in it s orientation, even more so when the various animals are facing off in the roarball court.  The whole thing really is a treat, especially when watching it with one's kids. 

Maybe down the line I could see myself calling Sony Animation out for making movies like this, but for now, this is just fine. 

 

8/10