GOAT (2025)

 Being someone who doesnt have kids it feels a bit strange going into a cinema screening where 80% of the audience is children. GOAT tells the story of Will (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) who goes to a roarball game (basically basketball) and wants to grow up and be like his hero Jett (voiced by Gabrielle Union), ten years later and the team that Jett is in are failing and in a desperate move they sign Will after he impressed in a viral video. 

I enjoyed this film. It took a while to get going and at 100 minutes its not like its a long film but once the film got into a high gear then it really picked up for me. I liked the character of Will and thought that he was talented without coming across as cocky or arrogant. He was someone who had a dream and was confident enough in his skills. Of the outcast characters in the team I liked Modo (Nick Kroll)  the most. He was funny and quite likeable as a result. I did like Flo (Jenifer Lewis) and the character was clearly a slime ball owner who never had much interest in the team. Patton Oswalt was great as Dennis the ‘coach’ before becoming the coach for real. 

As this film is done by the same studio that did the Spider-verse movies which i generally think are awful even though the animation is good, I thought that the animation was quite good. It’s not Illumination or Pixar level but it's still pretty good although I think the animation is more vibrant in those Spider-Man films. The games take place in various different themed arenas and whilst at times it looked like different worlds from Mario Kart, they all looked amazing especially the final one. 

I had seen a trailer for it and whilst it looked ok there didn’t seem to be anything special about it but I am not the target audience. GOAT is a good animated film that will keep the young one entertained as I heard more noise from the adults than I did from the kids. As they are the target audience it is more important that the film works on them but if it works on adults then it is a bonus. Whether it has the longevity of