GOAT

It’s a curious thing to watch Pixar become the old guard, but when it comes to just what our animated family fare is giving us to actually look at, the once titanic animation house’s output has become curiously, even stubbornly, cautious. It’s all well and good for the assortment of blobby humans, amorphous abstract concepts and hyper-intelligent woodland critters dominating their stable to be crisply defined, but their carefully airbrushed 3D look feels almost antiseptic next to the bright colours and tactile, faintly choppy imagery popularised by Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Known officially as stepped 3D (but affectionately referred to as 2.5D elsewhere), the style has made itself known everywhere from the storybook stylings of Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish to the greasy, subway graffiti look of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Turns out, all it took for the masses to become re-enchanted with computer animation was for them to sense human hands at work; for the end result to risk looking, if not unfinished, then as if in the process of being made. It’s a significant factor in why GOAT, a new animation from first-time director Tyree Dilihay, feels so much more vibrantly alive than it ought to.

On the face of it, the world that aspiring roarball champion Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin) inhabits is not so different from the anthropomorphised cityscape of Zootropolis, with various assorted animals once again commuting to work, congregating in beloved diners and assembling for all-important sporting contests. Yet with its jerky rhythms and acid-bright bursts of colour, the result feels more like stepping into the pages of a scrappy high school sketchbook: wilder and wackier, and perhaps even more inviting. The mossily overgrown, neon green Nowheresville where the shenanigans will unfold is an appealing one, enough to encourage you to picture a less well-worn story for it to host.

On that front, few surprises can be expected in GOAT. Present and accounted for is the underestimated underdog dreamer, striving to win the begrudging respect of a gruffly disapproving mentor figure. Likewise, the dysfunctional found family unit of misfits and losers rallying together to win against the odds. Will a final coup de grace allow them to win and lose in a fashion that – with the grand scheme of things taken into account – is ultimately unimportant next to personal redemption and lessons learned? Well, some element of surprise ought to be preserved. In this case, the gang of outcasts in question are the Thorns, a past their prime roarball (really just basketball with a higher level of jeopardy) team, economically assigned a single character trait each. There’s giraffe Lenny, a Steph Curry-esque player with Steph Curry’s gift for shooting hoops (voiced by producer Steph Curry); an anxious rhinoceros GirlDad (David Harbour); a chronically online Ostrich (Nicola Coughlan); a vaguely pervy Komodo dragon (Nick Kroll, scoring the highest laugh rate) and Jett, the faded former superstar panther seeking a comeback (Gabrielle Union).

Will is the fresh blood in the group, striving against the prejudice that greets him for being of unimposing stature. Jett’s reluctant guidance soon blossoms into fear that the scrawny young upstart will upstage her, and if there is a subversion in GOAT’s steady sports movie trajectory, it may be just how destructively petty and self-serving its deuteragonist is permitted to be. Over the course of 100 overextended minutes, Jett lashes out at her team and returns to them seeking absolution enough times to make you wonder if this bubblegum pop confection has accidentally stumbled into having something to say about toxic cycles of co-dependency.

One needn’t worry. GOAT is hellbent on going down easy; briskly watchable, never surprising and, refreshingly, just that little bit above average. It’s not only the brightly bustling visual style that buoys it, but a consistent run of rapid-fire animal gags that will connect with connoisseurs of the silly-clever (but really just silly). Kroll’s weirdo Modo promptly sheds his skin to use as a blanket for a long-haul flight; Will’s gerbil landlord (Wayne Knight) bemoans the mouths he has to feed, with three adorable little munchkins revealing themselves, and then more, and more, until the swarm of babies swallows up the whole house. Yes, Dilihay’s movie has much the same intent as too many contemporary children’s entertainments, hammering you into submission by throwing as much stuff into each solitary minute as possible, but much of that stuff is confident and consistent. It’s enough to make you blanche at the movie’s lowest point, the cheaply bought pathos of Will’s inevitable tragic backstory, trotting out a saintly mother claimed by vague illness like a box in need of ticking. This diverting animation would get the job done just fine without having to creakily feign the appearance of emotional depth.

Ultimately, this feverishly paced, visually striking sports movie riff delivers a contact sugar high that will leave child audiences elated and adults pain-free, even if it swiftly dissipates in the aftermath.