Director Tyree Dillihay entered the 'kids, don't be afraid to live your dreams' arena with GOAT, the latest animated feature from Sony Pictures. It's a charming love letter to basketball with a strong voice cast, given a little extra realism thanks to producer Stephen Curry, but it's a narrative that's become all too familiar.
Sony Pictures Animation has been killing the animation game lately, between the Best Animated Feature Oscar-winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Annie Awards-sweeping Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and the juggernaut that is KPop Demon Hunters. With Dillihay (of Bob's Burgers directorial fame) was brought on with Curry in tow, there was reason to be excited for their new outing.
Centering a kid (literally, he's a young goat) who wants to play roarball, it's firmly planted in the 'unlikely kid should live his sports dreams' filmography. It joins similar entries like Rudy, Rookie of the Year, Billy Elliot, and a host of other "live your dreams" films, this time with basketball.
When GOAT was announced in 2024, it immediately became buzzy due to Curry's involvement (as producer and cast member). Now that the film is finally here, it's a fun, colorful, high-energy animated sports film that's clearly grounded in a love of the game.
GOAT Is a Breezy Animated Charmer With a Solid Voice Cast
In the animal world of Vineland, Will (Caleb McLaughlin) is a young goat who dreams of playing roarball (an animal world version of basketball) in the big leagues like his role model, Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union). It's an especially emotional dream given the death of his mother, and Will lacks both money and size. Roarball is a sport dominated by massive animals, like rhinos, grizzlies, and its aggressive horse champ, Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre). When Will gets a rare chance to play the game on his favorite team, the Thorns, with Jett, he has to overcome his stature and numerous pressures to become the GOAT.
GOAT has an excellent voice cast across the board, led by a well-cast McLaughlin as the young goat with GOAT dreams. He provides strong emotional grounding for a character who also suffers emotional baggage from his mother's loss and is struggling to squeak by in Vineland. Union gives a strong outing here, as well as a phenomenal but aging world-class player on a team that can't land a win.
Pierre has considerable vocal pizazz as Mane Attraction (a great horse character name), a talented but annoyingly aggressive antagonist on another team. The voice cast is stacked, with Stephen Curry himself voicing the giraffe player Lenny. By a landslide, the funniest character is Nick Kroll's turn as the unhinged Thorns player Modo (a Komodo dragon), who is absolutely absurd and hilarious throughout for being truly weird in a self-aware way.
GOAT Is Fun but Fails To Stand Out
Roar boasts an imaginative world overall, with roarball's dominance of large animals echoing basketball's own proclivities for vertically gifted players. There's a lot of strong thought that clearly went into the project, from the double entendre of a goat who wants to be the GOAT to the ever-shifting roarball courts that keep games fresh. Sure, they'd make the sport uninsurable, but it's a nice set up that feels grounded in the world.
It also allows opportunities for some cool animated sports sequences that look and feel more unique, and escape constant visual comparison with Warner Bros.' Space Jam and its sequel. These interesting set pieces also create cool opportunities for great basketball (er, roarball) scenes, and overall, the sports choreography and animation excel (which is harder than you'd think). Though the world is imaginative, some elements could use more thought in the setup. The animal world of Vineland, for a significant example, has terrifying implications if you stop to think about it.
Carnivores and herbivores live and play roarball together, and we're occasionally reminded that these carnivore fauna do indeed eat meat... so what do they live on? Do they regularly eat their neighbors? Are herbivores under constant terror of being lunch, or are the carnivores always starving? A diner is a major location in GOAT, so how does their whole food industry, or their civilization itself, work? And while roarball's dangerous courts are cool, is no one going to discuss that players probably regularly die because of them?
Some unfortunate implications aside, the biggest issue with GOAT is that it's the latest entry into a well-trod set of sub-genres. It feels like a film we've seen a dozen times, a sort of progeny of the above-noted sports film trope with the animated basketball sub-genre that at least boasts two prominent members in Space Jam and its sequel. It's a fun film, and it feels like there's certainly an audience for it, but GOAT isn't quite imaginative enough to carve out new territory on a crowded court.
Final Rating: 7/10
GOAT premieres in theaters on February 13, 2026.
