I walked into the advance screening of Sony’s “Goat” with the heavy, leaden dread of a man who has spent far too much time avoiding rooms filled with sticky-handed children and the high-pitched screams of the “target demographic.”
Usually, when a screening invite implies a playground atmosphere, I lower my expectations into the sub-basement and prepare to contemplate the futility of existence while looking for the nearest exit.
But then the lights dimmed, the neon pulse of Vineland kicked in, and I found myself (much to my own irritation) actually having a good time. It’s an occupational hazard. Sometimes the corporate formula is executed with such high-gloss precision that you stop resenting the manipulation and just enjoy the ride.
The film is a party masquerading as a movie, a hyper-kinetic explosion of color that treats the underdog sports trope not as a cliché, but as a sacred text. Our hero is Will (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin), a goat who is perpetually “too small” for the high-stakes world of a basketball-like sport known as “roarball.”
If you’ve seen one movie about a plucky misfit with a dream, you have seen this plot. It is predictable, it is sentimental, and it is built on a blueprint that has been recycled since the dawn of the multiplex. Yet, there is a certain undeniable grace in the way it moves. It vibrates, unfolds, hits the ground running, and refuses to let up.
The presence of Stephen Curry as both producer and voice actor gives the film a strange, grounded legitimacy. You can feel his influence in the way the roarball matches are structured. The plays, the strategy, the teamwork, and the “underdog” mentality all ring true to anyone who knows basketball. It has the DNA of a real athlete’s journey. The strategy and the “small ball” philosophy feel like a direct translation of his own career.
The physics are clearly impossible — such gravity-defying stunts are beyond any real athlete or even a goat. However, the rhythm of the game feels authentic. Curry has successfully infused the essence and spatial awareness of a top-tier playmaker into a creature with horns and hooves.
There is also that peculiar, recurring irony of modern cinema. We apparently need a cast of animals to remind us what it actually means to be human. Stripped of our bipedal pretenses, the film uses these creatures to deliver a lecture on the necessity of inclusive community and the grace of knowing when to pass the torch.
The film suggests that legacy isn’t about the records you set, but the bridge you build for the person — or goat — coming up behind you. It is a story about the “human” heart, insisting on the value of basic decency in a world that usually only rewards the loudest roar.
The visual style is a dizzying evolution of stutter-frame animation, resembling a bag of Skittles detonated inside a high-end nightclub. It is electric and neon-drenched, which is a polite way of saying it might give you a mild headache, but the choreography of the matches is legitimately breathtaking.
It’s a story shimmering with technical brilliance even when the dialogue sinks into “hustle culture” platitudes that sound like they were written by a LinkedIn influencer.
Of course, the commercialism is rampant. The product placement for Mercedes and Under Armour is so loud it practically demands its own character arc. The film presents an entire ecosystem of lifestyle choices where even a goat needs the right luxury branding to be taken seriously.
And yet, thanks to a grounded, weary performance by Gabrielle Union as the veteran Jett Fillmore, the film manages to find a pulse. It is a flashy, high-velocity distraction that is surprisingly potent.
I walked in expecting a chore and walked out wondering if I’d just been charmed by a corporate-sponsored fever dream that, despite its metallic sheen, still remembers how to feel.
This review is also published on ABS-CBN.com.