GOAT

You can’t knock them for trying. Ever since “G.O.A.T.” — an abbreviation for “greatest of all time” — entered the popular vernacular of sports culture, it was only a matter of time before some Hollywood genius put down their latte, sat up and thought: “what if a goat could play sport?”

As far as keep-the-kids-quiet-for-a-couple-of-hours fare goes, GOAT does not feel as cynical or cash-grabby an effort as, say, last year’s Smurfs. There’s real craft and care committed to the screen here. The animation is crisp and rich and handsomely rendered, the fur feeling thick and earthy, the backgrounds alive with detail. Visually, it’s strong.

That level of quality might be expected from Sony Pictures Animation, a studio responsible for the Spider-Verse series and KPop Demon Hunters. But they also made Vivo and The Angry Birds Movie 2, and this feels like more of the latter, at least in terms of narrative ambition. It’s basically a Zootropolis clone (or Zootopia, depending on which territory you happen to be reading this in): an anthropomorphic world in which talking animals live in various urban environments, with all the usual jokes to go with it.

It even borrows the basic gist of that Disney film: that there is a natural pecking order of big and small animals, and it takes one plucky underdog — an underbunny in Zootropolis, an undergoat here — to upend the system. There has never been a “small”, as they are known, in the basketball-esque sport of roarball. “Smalls can’t ball,” goes the received wisdom. But for young goat Will Harris (voiced by Stranger Things’ Caleb MacLaughlin), his childhood dream cannot be denied, even against seemingly impossible odds.

In some goofy wish fulfilment, this hard-on-his-luck capricorn suddenly finds himself thrust into the big leagues, playing alongside his childhood hero Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union) when a video of him shooting hoops goes viral. The problem with a character set up from the title to be the greatest of all time is that there’s not much to him: he is boringly brilliant, his route to stardom devoid of much tension and with scant emotional motivation (his mum was very encouraging, turns out). This is the second film this year to have “Dream Big” as a tagline, along with Marty Supreme — though that Oscar-nominated drama does not include a clutch of farting baby rhinos.

At its heart, GOAT is a sports movie, with all the weary clichés that must bring: think The Mighty Ducks, with a goat, a giraffe, and an ostrich replacing the ducks, and you’re not far off.

The main thrust of this story, then, is simply some dumb, thuddingly obvious lessons about teamwork and its important relevance with regards to dreamwork — lessons even longtime veteran Jett Fillmore was apparently unawareof. At its heart, GOAT is a sports movie, with all the weary clichés that must bring: think The Mighty Ducks, with a goat, a giraffe, and an ostrich replacing the ducks, and you’re not far off.

Which would be fine, if it was at least a bit wittier or wiser. The screenplay is just nowhere near as sharp as the animation, with tired gags that even The Secret Life Of Pets would have rejected: in this world, cats lick their genitals, warthogs like mud baths, and there is an alarming and repeated use of the word “cloaca”.

That’s not even getting into the egregious product placement, lathered throughout without shame or regret. Don’t be surprised if, having watched this film, your child demands to be driven to school in a Mercedes Benz while wearing a PlayStation t-shirt and Sony headphones.

So, it almost goes without saying, this film is far from the greatest of all time. But neither is it the worst. There is fun to be had for your eyes if not your ears, in how inventive and sharp and full of detail the world is. Credulous kids of a certain age will be happy enough with it. But we’ve come to expect more from this lot. It’s all a bit billy-goat rough.