Take 60: Goats

Goat is the latest film from Sony Pictures Animation. It’s the story of Will (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) , a small goat, who dreams of playing “roarball” (basically a amped-up, full contact version of basketball) with the big dogs and becoming THE GOAT. Being a little kid (sorry, I saw it, had to go there) it’s an uphill battle as he finds himself playing for the Vineland Thorns, who haven’t won a game in ten years. He has to prove himself among huge figures and personalities which include his idol, Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union), Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre), Grizz (Jelly Roll), and Stephen Curry as Lenny Williamson among others, and they don’t intend to make it easy for him.

In addition to those mentioned above, there is also Jennifer Hudson as Louise Harris, Will’s mother, Patton Oswald as Coach Dennis Cooper, and one of my personal favorites, Jenifer Lewis as the dastardly team owner Flo Everson. At this point, with all the sheer number of films with anthropomorphic characters , it’s not surprising that the voice acting being good is going to be a surprise to anyone.

What I did find surprising is the fact that gender isn’t an issue here- at all. Jett Fillmore is the best player on the Vineland Thorns and mixes it up with the boys and no where is it ever brought up, it just is. Crazy to think in the real world, that would pretty much never happen so seeing it here was refreshing. And as an animated film from the people who brought us the Spiderverse movies, the action sequences ARE pretty cool and were visually fun to look at.

As a coworker of mine would say, this movie was cute—- or whatevah. It really is a kids movie FOR kids. There is no nuance. There are no major surprises. As suspected, we learn by the end, size doesn’t matter and we know that Will is gonna carry the team to victory. And that’s all well and good, but that’s really all there is to it.

My score: 7.5 It’s fine, but very light. I enjoy my children’s content to have a little more subtlety for the adults. I am not the target audience, and that’s fine. The kids will probably love it.

Wanna prove that you are the GOAT, leave the best comment ever. Or not… and until next week…