A skinny, little goat with speed and ball-throwing skills gets a chance in the Roarball big leagues. Now he just has to keep from being eaten—by his own team. Some predictable bathroom humor is the main content stinker. A little rude lingo turns up, too. But all in all, this fun sports story emphasizes teamwork, humility and earnest effort as you chase your dreams—no matter how impossible they seem.
Will Harris has always wanted to be a Roarball pro.
Granted, Roarball is a high-intensity, full-contact, coed sport that was designed for large and brawny animals. And as a billy goat, Will is decidedly not large. Or brawny. He’s been working out like crazy and can still only form the semblance of a flexed muscle when he pushes up the loose skin on his arm. (Or maybe when he rolls up his shirt sleeves really high.)
But Will has dreamed of playing Roarball since he was a kid. His mom used to take him to games and cheer right by his side. And when Will said he wanted to play for the local Vineland Thorns club—scrambling and passing alongside the incredible black leopard, Jett Filmore—she cheered on that dream, too. Will’s mom was always like that. Always. He misses her a lot.
These days, though, Will lives pretty much hand-to-mouth. He works delivery jobs and tries to keep up on the rent for the small empty garage he calls home. There are few who will support him or cheer him on, but he still has his dream.
Then Will’s big break arrives.
The Thorns have been floundering as a team. Jett Filmore is great, but she can’t do it all on her own. And some say she’s getting a bit long in the tooth. For that matter, the team’s greedy owner, Flo Everson, refuses to pony up any money to support the star athlete with decent support talent.
However, Everson also realizes that if she’s gonna be able to sell the team at some point for a hefty payday, she’ll need to stir up some publicity. That’s when she spots a viral video, created by Will’s nerdy friends, showcasing the young goat’s Roarball talents.
A wonderful idea hits Everson like a bolt from the sky. Why not hire a local boy? And a goat at that! The sports news crews will eat that up. Everson will look like she’s supporting the small-animal community, and Jett will have to stop complaining that there’s no new talent. But best of all, the move will get an influx of local animals to buy tickets and fill the auditorium seats. Hey, the team won’t even have to play the kid—just parade him around for local games. It’s genius!
Jett, however, loathes the idea. And the other members of the Thorns aren’t happy about it either. They may be losers, but they don’t want to be laughing stocks.
Of course, Will is pretty woohoo happy about getting signed out of the blue. He’ll just have to earn his place on the court with animals five times his size. He can handle that. He’s had to face worse odds his whole life.
Will just needs to find a way to become exactly what his beloved Thorns need.
In a flashback scene, Will’s mom sacrifices some money they don’t necessarily have to treat her son to a Thorns game, and Will is incredibly grateful. That small scene helps establish this mom and son’s love for one another. We also see Mom support Will’s dreams and give her son pertinent pieces of advice. Those moments compel Will to always work hard and be the best he can be—traits that serve him later in life.
As mentioned, Will’s new teammates don’t want him on the team. Jett is particularly angry about the idea. But because of Will’s tenacity and honest openness, the teammates all come to understand one another better and become a close-knit team.
A rhino named Archie is one of those teammates. He’s a single dad with two troublesome daughters who’re always getting into mischief. But he patiently cares for his daughters and protects them from harm. The girls obviously love him dearly.
Archie and the other members of the Thorns—an eccentric Komodo dragon named Modo, a fast but high-strung Ostrich named Olivia and a long-limbed giraffe named Jeff—all have their own limitations on and off the ball court. But together, they’re able to overcome large obstacles.
Eventually, Jett meets some of Will’s friends in a small restaurant where he used to work. They all love Will and are huge fans of Jett’s—welcoming her and showering her with praise and presents. That visit begins to change Jett’s opinion of Will. “You’ve got a lot of good folks behind you,” Jett tells him. “So do you,” Will assures her.
Jett wants desperately to win a Claw, the league’s championship trophy. But near the end of the season, she admits that playing as a team has given her a change of heart. “I started thinking that if I ended with a Claw in my hand, it wouldn’t matter how I got it. But you know, it’s all that matters.” Ultimately, Jett makes a personal sacrifice to put her teammates before herself.
In a tense moment, an announcer bombastically declares, “With fire and brimstone bringing judgement and wrath to us all.” Christmas gets mentioned.
Will’s gerbil landlord, Frank, seemingly has hundreds of children. And his wife repeatedly becoming pregnant is a running joke throughout the film. In fact, by the movie’s end, the happy and celebrating Frank calls out joyously to his wife, “Let’s have another dozen kids!”
During a game, a “Canoodle Camera” spotlights animal couples who then kiss each other. In a crowd of fans a female calls out, “Marry me, Modo.” Then a male voice calls out, “No, marry me.”
Like I said at the outset, Roarball was designed for large and brawny animals. So being as small as he is, Will gets thumped around quite a bit by much larger animals. Bully ballers kick him off a local playground. Elsewhere, he gets pounded into the court by muscular, opposing pros. In fact, one of Will’s friends worries that the skinny goat will be killed if he even steps onto the court with the massive Roarballers. And when Will first joins the Thorns, some of his own teammates growlingly threaten to eat him.
That said, there are plenty of big guys who stumble and fall face-first to the floor. Some get injured and hobble off the court after taking punishing blows or hitting one of Roarball’s dangerous environmental hazards.
The Thorns’ coach calls a play called “24 Eagle,” and Modo calls out, “I’ve eaten 24 eagles.” One fiery player angrily cries out that he’s “going to rip the heart out of this league and make them all look at it.” During a heated game, Archie’s little girls scream out, “Gut him, Daddy! Make him bleed.”
The words “suck,” “butt,” “gosh” and “dang” are scattered throughout the dialogue. Someone teases Will saying, “I know you think you’re all bad-ah-ah.” And there are also winking uses of animal kingdom words such as: “Get off my cloaca, Chuck.” When the team’s coach tells Will and Jett that he’s going to “coach the scat out of you,” Archie quickly covers his daughters’ ears and objects to the coach’s language.
None.
Will talks about his mom’s passing. And though he doesn’t tell us what exactly happened, it’s implied that her death was from a protracted disease.
The movie leans into some toilet humor giggles at times. For instance, Jett gets out of bed, stretches and then lifts a leg to lick her inner thigh (as a cat might do). The camera looks closely at a huge bear’s backside, not quite fully covered by his trunks. Archie’s two little rhino daughters pass gas into the team coach’s CPAP mask. Modo wipes his crotch with a towel and tosses it in Will’s face. Etc.
Modo sheds his skin, and it accidentally falls on Will, freaking him out.
Flo sells the Thorns out from under the players, saying that she wanted to put “butts in seats” but that she never expected the team to win games. But since they did, she’s cashing out and leaving them with nothing—not even a job next season.
Kids’ movies aren’t necessarily where you look for crisp, unique story ideas. And you won’t find many brilliant twists and turns in GOAT, either. It’s a pretty typical sports pic, with a pretty typical underdog hero (or rather, undergoat) and a pretty typical crunch-time resolution.
We older billy goats will recognize some classic sports-movie themes woven into its mix. But to the kids in the crowd, it’s just colorful, fun stuff. GOAT is simply a good story about an undersized, likeable dude who beats the odds; he’s a guy who cares and learns and becomes a good teammate.
There’s also a deeper layer to this film. Amid the teambuilding and friend-making, there are very sweet and emotional moments where Will fondly remembers his mom’s encouragement and love. And late in the film, someone quotes the Thorn’s slogan—Roots run deep—while rallying the community around their beloved team.
GOAT uses all of that to suggest that true strength and success are built upon a solid foundation of hard work, humility, shared values and family love. And that makes this movie a pretty solid winner in my book.
Of course, this is also a kids’ pic. From time to time, it leans on animal potty humor and some lightly rude lingo. So … there’s that, too.
But all in all, GOAT is an enjoyable, heartfelt sports movie. It dribbles a bit, but it doesn’t drop the family-friendly ball.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
