Stephen Curry’s animated basketball movie “GOAT” is a disappointing airball
You’d expect an animated basketball movie with four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry in the producer’s chair to be an easy layup. So why is “GOAT” such a brick?
Despite a wonderfully textured kinetic world and some quirky, interesting characters, the film is marred by a predictable and corny script. It’s easy to see the passes coming as a Curry 3-pointer arcs into the net.
The movie has the kind of lazy, thin writing that feels like it could all come from a boozy Hollywood happy hour together: “Brother, brother. Wait. What if the GOAT was a real goat?”
It centers on Will Harris, a goat who dreams of becoming a great dancer, voiced by “Stranger Things” star Caleb McLaughlin. Undersized and orphaned – still with the orphans, guys? – Will is a delivery boy at a diner and is behind on the rent. He’s a great outside shooter, but he’s a liability in the paint unless he learns.
He lives in Vineland – a bustling cityscape with graffiti and creepers choking playgrounds – and is an avid supporter of the local franchise, the Thorns. His idol is veteran Jett Fillmore, a Leopard who is the league’s all-time leading scorer, well voiced by Gabrielle Union. The Thorns are a bit confused, despite Jett’s brilliance.
The game here is called roarball, a high-intensity, co-ed, multi-animal, full-contact sport derived from basketball with a hollow ball that has small holes. It’s a “Mad Max” sport: ultraviolent, unrefereeed, and the dangers lurk not only from rugged opponents but from the arena itself. The championship prize is called Claw.
The best part of the film might be the environments for the other arenas: lava in one, a swamp with stalagmites and stalactites in another, plus another surrounded by ice, and another with sandstorms and desert rocks. Home field advantage is a big thing in this league.
There seem to be only two types of points scored here: fiery windmills, slashing tomahawks and spectacular alley-oop dunks or slow-motion threes from a center so far away they might as well be in a different zip code. No mid-range jumpers, bro.
This universe is divided into “big” and “little” – rhinos, bears and giraffes on one side, gerbils and capybaras on the other – and Will is considered small. “Small teams can’t play football,” he is told condescendingly.
But Will, thanks to a viral video, is improbably signed to the Thorns by the team’s owner (a cynical warthog voiced wonderfully by Jenifer Lewis). It’s seen as a shameless publicity stunt that no one wants, especially Jett, who needs a winning season after being mocked by “All Stats, No Claw.”
Now, predictably, in Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley’s script, comes the bulk of the film, giving off a constant “The Karate Kid” or “Air Bud” vibe as it charts Will’s steady rise to honored teammate and future of the franchise, despite Jett insisting she’s not ready to leave: “I’m the GOAT. I’m not passing the baton.”
The lessons are good – the importance of teamwork and self-belief – but the testosterone-fueled violence on the fields is extreme for WWE. There are useless caps for Mercedes and Under Armor and empty slogans like “Dream big” and “Roots run deep”.
Some of the most interesting characters end up in the Thorns, a fragile and slightly broken team that includes a rhino (voiced by David Harbour), a delicate ostrich (Nicola Coughlan), a gonzo Komodo dragon (Nick Kroll) and an unpredictable giraffe (Curry).
The Komodo dragon, called Modo, is the best of the bunch, a crazy, unpredictable creature full of electricity. “If Modo were more of a snack, it would eat itself,” he declares. Could he have his own movie?
Directed by “Bob’s Burgers” veterans Tyree Dillihay and Adam Rosette, “GOAT” is aimed at Generation Alpha, capitalizing on cell phone screens and online likes, virality and diss tracks. It’s not as funny as it thinks it is and is boring in its overly familiar redemption arc.
Another potential GOAT of basketball – Michael Jordan – gave us a live animated basketball movie in “Space Jam” exactly 30 years ago and “GOAT”, while not as bad as that mess, is by no means an airball.
“Goat,” a Sony Pictures Animation release in theaters Friday, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for crude humor and brief, gentle language. Duration: 100 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.