- 2 days ago
Film Brain reviews this Stephen Curry-produced animation about a goat who plays basketball... no, it is not an Air Bud scenario. It really is all about that pun, but it looks terrific.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Projector, and on this episode, one young animal is about to prove
00:04that he really is the goat. In addition to being a goat, of course.
00:25Ever since he was a kid, goat Will Harris, voiced by Caleb McLaughlin, has wanted to be a raw ball
00:31player,
00:31just like his idol, Jet Fillmore, the Black Panther star player for the Vineland Thorns,
00:36voiced by Gabrielle Union. Ten years later, Will is a delivery boy, who has never stopped practicing
00:41despite his stature, and when he faces off against raw ball horse player main attraction, voiced by
00:46Aaron Pierre, the video of it goes viral. That leads the Thorns warthog owner Flo Everson, voiced by
00:52Jennifer Lewis, to sign Will to the team, making him the first small to ever play raw ball, but Jet
00:58herself is far from keen to share the court with him. I'm not really a sports guy, but if you
01:03are,
01:03and you're into basketball, then there's probably a very high chance that you've heard of NBA star
01:07Stephen Curry. If you haven't heard of him because you're some British weirdo who only pays attention
01:13to films, he's a four-time NBA champion, an Olympic gold medalist, he was the first unanimously voted
01:18MVP, and is considered probably the greatest shooter in the history of the sport. He's definitely
01:23someone that you consider to be a goat, or greatest full-time, if you're not keeping up with the kids
01:28these days. He was also considered to be quite small, although at six foot three, he's hardly a short
01:34king like I am, but bear in mind that the average basketball player is six foot seven, and he was
01:39also
01:39quite skinny back in the day. Anyway, Stephen Curry is the producer on Goat, an animated movie about a
01:46small goat who is fantastic at scoring basketballs despite his size. Get it? He's a goat, but also he's a
01:53a goat. I mean, where do they get their ideas from? I do have to admit that when I describe
01:58this as a
01:59basketball movie with a goat, it does make you think this is some sort of airbud scenario. Ain't no role
02:04on the
02:04boat that says a goat can't play basketball. I'm kidding, of course, but being a tiny bit serious, if you
02:10look
02:10deeply in the end credits, you'll discover that Goat was inspired by an unpublished book called Funky Dunks by
02:16Chris Tugas, which is presumably where the project originated. I'd imagine it got massively reworked from that to what it
02:23is
02:23now, with the script created to Aaron Boshbaum and Terry Riley, who created the show Fairfax. In fact, this is
02:29the film
02:30debut of not just the writers, but also the directors, Tyree Dillahay and Adam Rosette, who up until now have
02:36only
02:36helmed animated TV shows, notably Dillahay helming 32 episodes of Bob's Burgers, but they've also known animation
02:42and storyboards on the likes of The Wild Robot and Orion in the Dark. But most notably, it's the first
02:48film to come out
02:48from Sony Pictures Animation after K-Pop Demon Hunters, which wasn't just a hit on Netflix, it was a phenomenon.
02:55The Spider-Verse movies have put Sony's animation division on the map, but the surprise success of Demon Hunters has
03:01raised expectations for them. And let's just say straight away that Goat isn't really on that level.
03:07But few things are. And it's still likely to score well with the five to ten-year-old crowd. It's
03:12just not going to be a cultural obsession like that was.
03:15Part of that is that it isn't really breaking the mould. On a script level, Goat hits as many of
03:20the sports movie beats as you can think of.
03:22It naturally starts out as an underdog story, but a surprisingly convoluted one at that.
03:27Will's Goat has big ambitions, but they're a distant dream from his day job of being the delivery boy for
03:33the dyer
03:34that is Myrla Louise, voiced by Jennifer Hudson, worked for before she died.
03:37The dyer staff are huge fans of the Thorns, and Llama owner Carol, voiced by Aisha Curry, Stephen Curry's wife,
03:45has become a surrogate mother to Will.
03:47But he's desperately in debt to his gerbil landlord Frank, voiced by Wayne Knight, which of course means this now
03:52has a direct connection to Space Jam.
03:55And whose running gag is that he has dozens upon dozens upon dozens of kids.
04:00That's what leads into trying to gamble his rent money against playing against Cocky Horse, Main Attraction, who plays for
04:06rival team the Magmas,
04:08and his size and speed allow him to outwit his opponent to a humiliating degree.
04:12Well, at least at first, because he still loses.
04:16That makes Will effectively homeless, but luckily he can still bunk with his friends Hannah and Daryl, voiced by Sherry
04:22Kohler and Eduardo Franco respectively,
04:23and they're the ones that make it into a video that go viral, because it's an easy route to wish
04:28for film and kids films these days when they all aspire to be YouTubers.
04:32That's a lot of plot for the first 20 minutes of your movie before the story even really gets started,
04:37not to mention a lot of supporting characters who are mostly reduced to the cheering section after the film's first
04:43act.
04:43But that just speaks to how busy Goat is, both in terms of story and visuals,
04:48that seems to be trying to compensate for being formulaic by doing the most of everything.
04:53It's constantly moving, sometimes to its detriment, because some of it feels underdeveloped.
04:59Chiefly the subplot about Will's late mother, which is strangely underplayed here.
05:03You would think that honouring her memory would be his main motivation,
05:06but Hudson is barely more than an extended cameo, and it gets a little lost amidst all the other stuff
05:11going on.
05:12Especially because Goat is also a comeback story as well.
05:16The Vineland Thorns have seriously lost their way, struggling to look to their former glory,
05:21with the aging Jet feeling the pressure.
05:23The team has become a band of quote, has-beens and head cases,
05:27who all have their own personal problems affecting them on the court.
05:30David Harbour's rhino, Archie, is overwhelmed trying to keep control of his troublemaker twin daughters.
05:36Nicola Coughlin's neurotic ostrich, Olivia, is constantly anxious about what people are saying about her on social media,
05:42and naturally buries her head in the ground when things get too much.
05:45Nick Kroll voices Komodo Dragon Modo, who is absolutely out of his mind,
05:51and is clearly engineered to be the film's breakout character,
05:54but a little too obviously so given all the wacky gags they give him.
05:58And Stephen Curry himself voices Giraffe Lenny, who has a slightly embarrassing side hustle trying to be a rapper.
06:04Get it? Because he's short, but he's playing a giraffe, the tallest member of the team!
06:10Do basketball players still get Napoleon complexes?
06:13But unscrupulous owner Flo isn't hiring Will to try and turn the team's performance around,
06:17it's because she sees a cheap and easy publicity stunt to bring in the punters,
06:21and if that brings in more cash for her, well she's like a pig in the mud.
06:25That's how you know she's greedy, because that's how we're introduced to her,
06:29enjoying a mud bath as her team loses.
06:31Jennifer Lewis is clearly enjoying playing a greedy boss, even if the role is entirely predictable.
06:37You might not be surprised when she tries to sell the Springfield ice totes to Albuquerque.
06:41I think in a different movie, Go would be about Will having to try and prove himself,
06:46to try and bury the idea that he's some kind of stunt,
06:48but also to break the underlying prejudices against small players in the sport,
06:53through his sheer talent and determination.
06:55Which it kind of is on a surface level, but not really on a deeper level.
07:00Take the small thing for example, Will is underestimated because of his size,
07:04and the fact that he's dwarfed by his opponents in a full-contact sport like Rawball,
07:08means he couldn't be legitimately hurt during the games, even killed.
07:13But we know that he won't, and there's very little sense of that kind of danger towards him.
07:18Likewise, Will isn't really discriminated against,
07:20apart from some bullies chanting,
07:22SMALLS CAN'T BALL, like it's white men can't jump.
07:25Nor does the film create a societal prejudice in the world that it craves.
07:29Even something like Zootopia's predator and prey dynamic,
07:32which made those ideas accessible for children.
07:34A more focused story could have drawn more out of these ideas instead of just gesturing at them,
07:40but GOAT throws an airball.
07:42Will is an inspirational figure for inclusion that anyone can play if they dream big enough,
07:47but the story doesn't give him enough agency.
07:49Strange Things star Callum McLaughlin is a very likeable voice in the lead character,
07:53but Will has written strangely passive,
07:56waiting on luck and opportunity rather than crating them actively.
08:00His biggest obstacle is Jet, who may be his hero,
08:04but resents his presence on the team as almost a personal insult to herself.
08:08She's the one that Will has to most prove himself to,
08:11simply because for a while she won't even allow him to play,
08:14just sit around on the bench until he has to be used because the team's short.
08:18As far as Will's character arc is concerned,
08:20it's pretty much complete the moment he steps out onto the court for his first game.
08:24He wanted to prove that Smalls can ball, and he does.
08:27Anything after that is a bonus, and he doesn't have to learn to become a better player,
08:32because he's naturally talented.
08:34So you feel like the film's strangely uninterested in the main character,
08:37or giving him personally much of a conflict.
08:40Will isn't the one who needs to be taught.
08:42If anything, he's the one actually teaching Jet.
08:45A funny thing happens around the halfway point,
08:47where you feel like a lot of the focus in the movie shifts onto her,
08:50almost like the filmmakers realised that they weren't actually making a film about a goat,
08:54they were making a film about the goat,
08:57and that she was a much more interesting character,
08:59than the one the movie is supposed to be about.
09:02Gabrielle Union's Jet is easily the most avert role in the film,
09:06and has far more control over the film's plot.
09:09Jet's story is one of the weight of expectation,
09:11where she's this iconic player, and she's been on the team for 10 years,
09:15but the Thorns still haven't won the court.
09:18She's getting older, and near the end of her playing career,
09:20but she doesn't want to retire.
09:23And her pride and insecurity is the thing that's holding the team back,
09:27because she's so conscious of the criticism surrounding her and the Thorns,
09:30that she's effectively controlling the team,
09:32and trying to do everything herself,
09:35towering over the team's anxious coach Dennis, voiced by Patton Oswalt.
09:38That only gets worse when Will is added to the team,
09:41because first she views him as a joke,
09:43and then when he starts playing, as a threat.
09:45There's a scene where they're filming a team promo,
09:47with this literal torch passing narrative that is being forced upon her,
09:51and she lashes out and refuses to play along with it.
09:55A lot of the stuff with Jet is about the kind of image and politics of the sport,
09:59that's actually surprisingly pointed.
10:01And this dynamic between Will and Jet,
10:03that rookie who is dismissed by his jade elder,
10:06but eventually earns their respect is nothing new,
10:09but it's fresher here because she's the one who takes from it.
10:12Will has the fan perspective, and knows how beloved she is in Vineland,
10:17but she's too deep in the game to realise it.
10:20Jet is the character with the most personal growth and conflict,
10:23and it's her decisions that drive the story,
10:26because she has to choose not to boss everyone around,
10:29and make it about herself.
10:31She's the one that has to change, and learn how to play in a team,
10:35because her ego is putting the team in a chokehold.
10:39And ultimately the story is about her having to prove that she is still the GOAT,
10:42and getting the claw that she so desires.
10:45And Will feels like a supporting character in her journey,
10:49so much so in fact that the film probably would have been better if it was just straight up about
10:53Jet.
10:54But whatever problems there are with the film's story,
10:56they don't matter when it's on the court.
10:59The visuals in this are phenomenal, being fast, fluid and lively,
11:03as you would expect from Sony Pictures' animation.
11:06And this follows the style of the Spider-Verse movie set before it,
11:09where the 3D borrows a lot from 2D line drawings and techniques,
11:13with elements of street art incorporated.
11:15I mentioned Zootopia earlier, and you do have to inevitably compare it to that,
11:20but I think this takes our animal world in a very different way to that did.
11:24Zootopia very much anthropomorphizes the animals and world,
11:27in a way that's often indistinguishable from a human one,
11:31whereas GOAT leans into that more heavily, and with more stylization.
11:35The animals in this keep a lot of their characteristics,
11:38and sometimes alternate between walking on two legs and running on all fours.
11:43And that allows them to have some fun character beats,
11:45especially with Jet, where they really play up her cat-like tendencies,
11:49like sleeping in a tree instead of a bed,
11:52or getting sprayed with a water bottle when she gets angry.
11:56The different locations and settings across the film have their own unique and distinct identities,
12:01which Zootopia did, but not as strikingly visually.
12:04One thing that Zootopia did do, though, is play with the idea that the city is built on
12:09different scales for different species,
12:11which you would have thought that GOAT would have done to emphasize the smalls, big dynamic,
12:16but nope, another air ball.
12:19But where it really shines is in those raw ball sequences,
12:22which are frenetic and genuinely exciting.
12:25Given this has Curry as a producer, a lot of effort has gone into trying to portray basketball accurately,
12:30and apparently they brought some experts to replicate plays and tactics.
12:34Although I've got to be honest, I was wholly in it for the eye candy.
12:37Like the distinctive way that blurring is used for motion, especially in backdrops,
12:42which is particularly apparent in Will's early challenge in the cage,
12:45or the use of eye-popping impact frames that Sony's animators are very adept at at this point.
12:51Even the different courts have their own looks and sense of personality that make them more exciting.
12:56There's an icy court that shatters and breaks, and especially the climax of Magma's court,
13:02which is of course volcanic and erupts, shooting lava, but also completely changing the topography,
13:08and those change the stakes of the games.
13:11In the raw ball scenes, the uneven story melts away to pure animated delight.
13:16Just nothing but net.
13:18So GOAT is a decidedly mixed bag.
13:20It's a very frantic film, both in the sense that it throws so much at you it can be a
13:24bit exhausting at times,
13:25but also in terms of all the character and story that it has to deal with.
13:29I think it could have made a stronger film with these ideas if it just pared it back a little,
13:34and stuck to the fundamentals, and honed in on the unexpected emotional beast,
13:39which is why K-pop demon hunters work the way that it did.
13:42I've not even got into the fact that it's a bit more reliant on toilet humour for easy laughs from
13:46its young audience,
13:47than you usually see in most family films these days.
13:50Not as a scene on a literal toilet, but also the gag where the twins farce into a sleep apnea
13:55machine.
13:56Or the product placement, like for Under Armour, who Stephen Curry is a brand ambassador for,
14:01or for Sony PlayStation, with Hannah wearing a branded t-shirt throughout.
14:06But considering this exists as a bit of a vanity project for Curry,
14:09and released to coincide with the NBA All-Star Weekend, it's better than it could have been.
14:14It's a formulaic, but likeable sports film, and there's a lot of charm in its aesthetic and animation,
14:20a lot of which deserves to be on the highlight reels of those who worked on it.
14:24I'm sure the target audience will have fun with it, but it isn't a slam dunk,
14:28nor is it going to be remembered as one of the greats, as it's ultimately forgettable.
14:32If you like this review, and you want to support my work, you can give me a tip at my
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14:48similar perks, or you can just simply like, share, and hype the video.
14:52It really does change the game.
14:55Until next time, I'm Matthew Burke, fading out.
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