A One Mann’s Movies review of “GOAT”. (2026, 2.5*, PG).
A trip to the cinema with the grand-kids, (no pun intended), saw me watching GOAT (a pun on the hooved animal and the phrase the ‘Greatest of all Time’). The grandkids loved it. Me? I ended up with a bit of a migraine,
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
A little goat, Will Harris (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin), dreams of making it big in the ‘Roarball’ league. But the league is uniquely populated by “big” animals. But Will has a particular set of ball skills that mean that history is about to be made for the struggling Vineland Thorns team.
Certification:
UK: PG; US: PG. (From the BBFC website: “Mild violence, rude humour, language”.)
Talent:
Starring: Caleb McLaughlin, Gabrielle Union, Stephen Curry, Aaron Pierre, Nicola Coughlan, David Harbour, Nick Kroll, Jenifer Lewis, Patton Oswalt, Jelly Roll, Jennifer Hudson.
Directed by: Tyree Dillihay & Adam Rosette.
Written by: Aaron Buchsbaum & Teddy Riley. (From a story by Nicolas Curcio & Peter Chiarelli and inspired by the book “Funky Dunks” by Chris Tougas).
Running Time: 1h 40m.
Summary:
Positives:
- The grandkids loved it! And they are the target audience.
- There’s a manic energy to the piece.
Negatives:
- The manic energy was extremely tiring on the eyes and brain for this viewer.
- There’s a real scattergun approach to the gags with a huge number of gags thrown at the screen and only a proportion of them sticking.
Full Review of “GOAT”:
Frenetic on-screen action without relief.
OK, so this one is fair and square aimed at kids. For adults, prepare to have your eyes and ears assaulted for 100 minutes. For the onscreen images, done in quite a garish style, are relentless with foreground objects zipping across your field of view all the time as the ‘camera’ dives and swoops around the court.
The dialogue is also relentless as if all of the characters have been given a nasty dose of verbal diarrhoea. The patter is so quick-fire that I was left saying “wh… what?” for some of it. The (presumed) jokes were fired out like a machine gun with only a proportion of them being understood by me and with a smaller proportion actually sticking.
The moral of the tale?
There is a decent moral to the story, with the plucky young goat fighting against all the odds to “Think big” and make true his dreams. And there’s a sub-plot about the importance of teamwork as the arrogant and untrusting (but beautifully drawn) Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union) takes it upon herself to win a match alone without bringing her team with her.
A league without gender bias.
One subtle point made by the film is that in this league it is not about being a man or a woman (or indeed any sort of transgender athlete in between). The players in the league are a mixture of genders and the discrimination that exists is sizeism, not sexism.
But I am not the target audience!
As I said, I went to this film with two of my grandkids, Frankie (10) and Eva (9), and my oldest grandkid Ellis (11) had already seen it. Together they came up with an average score of 4.5/5. It’s also number 2 in the current box office charts (with $5 million, behind “Wuthering Heights“). So it is clearly finding its audience.
Summary Thoughts:
It’s very loud and it’s very brash, but the kids seemed to enjoy it well enough. It’s not a great ‘drag-along’ film for adults though, who may need a paracetamol and a stiff drink afterwards.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggZA2oi8S5s.
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