MY THOUGHTS ON THE GOAT 2026 ANIMATED MOVIE [A MOVIE REVIEW, WITH SOME SPOILERS]

OK, this GOAT animated movie was released in theaters on February 13th, 2026. And it was hastily shoved to streaming platforms like Amazon Prime on March 24th 2026. Not the wisest business move to make, but we'll talk about that later.

First of all, this is a kids 3D movie. And there are some portions that may have been generated by AI, which they tried to blend into the stylish camera shots. I won't criticize that, although I'm part of the "NO AI" crowd. When you or your family member have been fired from a job and replaced by an AI system, then you'll understand the negative sentiment ;)

But of course, I hope that doesn't ever happen to you, as one of my fans!

Anyway, the style of this GOAT movie is reminiscent of Spiderman into the Spiderverse movie... not my favorite style, but it still works.

This is basketball themed movie, and it has a few NBA players like Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala [both players from the NBAs Golden State Warriors, while Andre aka Iggy has retired]. Both Andre and Steph serve as voice actors for their anthropomorphic counterparts [a Zebra and a Giraffe], and a few female WNBA  players are in the movie as well, along with the entertainer Jelly Roll. 

The movie's main character, a little pygmy goat named Will, is voiced by Caleb Mclaughlin. And the lead female character is a black panther female, voiced by Gabriel Union [wife of Dewayne Wayde, former Miami Heat NBA team player].

Plot is very basic. Little poor Goat-boy can play basketball [called roarball, & played on various dangerous / elemental-styled B-ball courts]. Goat-boy is from a single parent family, and he dreams big. Soon he goes viral from a streetball challenge, and he get a chance at a major league roarball contract, to play with the big boys and girls, with a chance to win a championship. Fortunately, he gets signed to the Vineland Thorns, the same team as his idol, a female tough black panther gal named Jett. And with their team, they battle a bunch of odd animal teams, and get to the NBA finals, aka the roarball championship game. Some stuff happens and it seems like the team is getting sold off, while this drama is leading up to the big final game. Thus the team almost falls apart, but then they pull together, and they win championship game. And they get the Claw trophy. The End.

The cast is lively and colorful, and the voice performances are good. And the camera angles during the basketball / roarball segments are all fantastic. The movie emphasizes teamwork, to make the dream work. And it seems like one of the themes is... size doesn't matter, as long as you have heart... and one hell of a jump-shot. The camera angles were always on point, in the ballin' scenes. And the movie did have one thing that all family movies need: heart.

Now here are some Critiques that I'll give, as an artist for over 20 years:

Overall, in this GOAT movie, the character designs were not the best... they were far too androgynous. For example, Ms. Jett [shown seated in the pic on the left], the lead female character, looks too much like a "Male" Black Panther, as do many of the other female designs in this movie. You can just study the Disney animated catalog spanning over 50 years, for better animal designs, or even Balto from the 90s; the 3D animators here didn't have to be "Disneyfied" in their style to create the GOAT, but the character designers should have done a lot better. Plus the female WNBA players still look like women in real life. But in this movie, their anthro / animal characters look like... male characters.. And at least, since Jett is female, then her panther-eyes should have been drawn differently and more sleek - study the female faces, in the 90s The Lion King, to see what I mean. The artstyle in this GOAT movie reminds me almost of the style of a theatrical feature like the Madagascar 3D movie, except that the animals there don't wear clothes. And those designs were created for slapstick comedic effects, as opposed to being intended to be realistic, like The Lion King.

As an adult person, when you see a cartoon / animated character drawn as a male, but presented with a female voice, it can throw you off, for a while... until you hopefully get used to it. But when you've just seen better designs, then you've seen better. And the pic on the right shows Jett, looking overly manly or just "dudish", while going for one hell of a slamdunk.

So why does Jett look so manly? Answer is Simple: because this GOAT movie was contrived in the Woke Era, when women are not allowed to be women. They've got to be manly, gritty and tough girl-boses... definitely no "TNA", and the uglier the better LOL. Plus Jett is the idol of the little boy goat, Will. And thus Will looks up to her, as one of the greatest players in the roarball game. 

In real life, it doesn't work like that. You can't force little boys to look up to female WNBA basketball players. It's not normal or psychologically sound, when the boys see the adrenaline-fueled male players in the NBA, violently slamming the ball and almost fighting each other or the referees. Like I said, this movie was contrived a few years ago, in the Woke Era. It's not a crime, but it certainly hinders the entertainment, appeal, and longevity of the feature film. And honestly, when little boys look up to female ballers, it's actually more of lust and sensual attraction, than for idol-like admiration. I won't be surprised if Jett's character was originally supposed to be a guy in the first drafted script proposal, but it got changed before animation began, to meet a strict diversity quota.

The two extra screenshot pics I've added show Will, the leading male goat character, going up against Mane Attraction, a horse with braids, who probably represents a tough black guy who plays streetball in the hood, while hustling people for money by making bets that the can win against any opponent. Will and Mane are rivals, and Mane actually plays on a separate championship roarball team. And as you look at the animation screenshots, you will see that Will looks really skinny... so skinny that his limbs often blend into the background, when you zoom out. That's tied to a poor animation background palette choice, and a flimsy lackluster character design.

Plus the over-emphasis on social media within this animated feature, while real, was oversaturated into the movie. You don't need all of that constant texting / live streaming /video-taking, when telling a good story, because it becomes too jarring. And it makes it seem far too superficial of a story... like saying: "Hey! Look guys, I went viral, and now I'm famous!". It's almost like a "get rich quick" scheme, playing out in an immature format on the screen. And in real life, a lot of kids who get famous too early end up with disastrous lives and heavy addictions.

Honestly, the original Space Jam movie from 1996 had better character designs than GOAT, and it did better at the Box Office.

Unfortunately, GOAT was rushed over to the streaming platforms, after being released in the same weekend as the NBA Allstar Game That was the wrong time for the movie to be in theaters... because kids are busy focusing on all of the other activities toed to the NBA Allstar Game, as opposed to being interested in going out to see the movie and then rushing back home so that they don't miss the Slam Dunk Contest or something else featuring their favorite NBA ballers and celebrities. Kids do prefer watching big TV events on a big screen at home with their friends. 

So GOAT wasn't even given a chance to stay in the theaters for 2 - 3 months, which is what the theatrical window should have been. That definitely affected the box office receipts, so GOAT made 101 Million dollars in the USA and 80 Million dollars overseas, for a cumulative profit of 181 Million Dollars. And back in 1996, Space Jam, before you consider inflation, made 250.2 Million Dollars [while they both had production budgets of roughly 80 - 90 Million, before adding the extra advertising costs].

Anyway, like I said, this is a fun kids movie. Steph Curry [the tall Giraffe guy called Lenny] was used to advertise this movie on Youtube & across social media, but he really was more of a supporting character in the whole thing. 

I'm in my late-40s, so I'm clearly an adult. But I could still see the entertainment value in it. And as a rating, I'd give it 7.5 out of 10, while knowing that kids will enjoy it... but they probably won't watch it numerous times and make it a cult classic like Michael Jordan's Space Jam, because the story doesn't have that sort of appeal.

FYI, the GOAT movie trailer is over HERE on Youtube.