GOAT

Sony Pictures Animation has delivered another visual knockout. GOAT may not reinvent the underdog playbook, but it plays its familiar game with enough heart, kinetic energy, and jaw-dropping animation that you'll forget to care about the predictable plot � at least for most of its brisk 100-minute runtime.

Timed perfectly to release alongside the 2026 NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles, GOAT follows Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin, Stranger Things), a teenage Boer goat living in a world divided between "bigs" and "smalls" � the large, powerful animals who dominate the high-contact sport of Roarball, and everyone else. Will has the talent. He just needs the shot.

The Animation: Breathtaking

Let's be clear � GOAT is visually extraordinary. Built using Epic Games' Unreal Engine alongside Sony's Spider-Verse animation pipeline, the film achieves a style that looks genuinely unlike anything else currently in cinemas. Backgrounds blur into painterly smears of color during action sequences while the foreground characters burst with crisp detail. Roarball itself � played on shifting, hazardous courts with lava pits, jungle vines, and zero-gravity zones � is an animator's dream, and the film delivers.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety called it "a vibrant surprise � a sports fable with a hip-hop vibe and an off-kilter cosmology," while the AP's Mark Kennedy praised visuals as "spectacular." Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus sums it up well: "Sporting a terrific voice cast, nifty animation, and a solid moral for youngsters, GOAT plays a familiar game with enough style and finesse to come close to the greats."

The Voice Cast

Caleb McLaughlin brings genuine warmth to Will � his is the kind of heartfelt lead performance that makes you root for a character even when the script keeps putting him through formula paces. Gabrielle Union is a delight as Jett Fillmore, the black panther superstar who initially views Will with contempt. Their dynamic � pride vs. humility, fame vs. hunger � gives the film its emotional core.

NBA legend Stephen Curry, who produced the film, voices Lenny Williamson, a giraffe on the team. David Harbour is reliably entertaining as the rhinoceros enforcer Archie, while Nicola Coughlan and Nick Kroll bring comedy to their animal teammates. The real-world basketball cameos � Dwyane Wade, A'ja Wilson, Kevin Love, Angel Reese � add a fun layer of authenticity for NBA fans.

The Verdict

The script leans hard on every underdog trope in the book � the tragic backstory, the unbelieving teammates, the key injury, the buzzer-beater. Critics like the LA Times and Empire weren't convinced it transcends those limitations. And they're right: this is no Spider-Verse. But for families looking for an exciting, visually spectacular, emotionally honest animated film � especially young kids who dream of playing a sport they love � GOAT delivers where it counts.

At $54M worldwide in its opening week and an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences are clearly enjoying themselves. Predictable? Absolutely. Fun? Indisputably. Beautiful to look at? Unlike almost anything else in theaters right now.