Basketball fans have long disputed who the greatest basketball player of all time is. Stephen Curry is seeking to enter the debate for GOAT through his work on “GOAT.”

“GOAT” was released Feb. 13 by Sony Pictures to generally positive reviews. The film sits at 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and 3.44/5 on Letterboxd.

The movie centers around the sport of Roarball, which seems akin to basketball except for the courts, which all have their potentially lethal gimmicks. The film was produced by and featured Golden State Warrior Steph Curry.

Small fry Will Harris aspires to be one of the Roarball greats like his idol, pantheress Jett Fillmore, played by Gabrielle Union, and to play for his hometown team, the Vineland Thorns. 

After a video goes viral showing Will facing off against the incredibly named Mane Attraction, a stallion played by Aaron Pierre, Thorns owner Florence “Flo” Everson, a warthog played by Jenifer Lewis, signs Will to the team as a publicity stunt. From there, Will must prove himself to the team and to the world in generic protagonistic fashion.

Before the games even begin, Will is forced to endure the most heinous punishment known in all of history: a diss track. Mane created a song titled “Goat Tears,” which then spun off a series of vendors at Roarball games serving cups of water with the same label. 

From the start, Will has to prove that he is worthy of doing anything other than warming the bench. After an outburst from Jett resulting in a timeout, he gets on the court to save the team at the last minute. The team then manages to turn themselves around through the excellence of the new player, reinvigorated and on pace for a Claw, the in-universe trophy for Roarball playoffs.

On their path to the playoffs, the coach Dennis Cooper, a proboscis monkey played by Patton Oswald, undergoes a radical transformation from a punching bag to a pivotal figure in the team’s direction.

Decisions made by Dennis to improve the team include taking away the phone of the internet-addicted ostrich Olivia, played by Nicola Coughlan, encouraging Modo, the Komodo dragon played by Nick Kroll, to get weirder and telling Archie, the Indian rhinoceros played by David Harbour, to be more protective of his teammates as if they were his sociopathic children.

Olivia has an addiction to an unnamed social media platform that plays a large role in the film and weighs heavily on the minds of the Thorns. Since this social media is in the film so much, the film has its fair share of meme references. The choices for references range from the modern gigachad-edit to the aged screaming goat and the poorly-motion-tracked image swirling in a toilet. 

After the coach reform and as the montage of victories goes by, Lenny, the giraffe played by Curry, makes a response track to Mane’s earlier diss. The song is entirely unremarkable other than being a team bonding experience.

Just as the champion title is in their sights, Flo sells the team to another city with none of the players in tow. Only Jett is supposed to learn of this event, but Will also hears it because of plot reasons. With her chances of winning a Claw so limited now, Jett goes on a rampage, winning the game by sacrificing all of her teammates. After the game, Will spills the beans and the team disbands out of distrust of Jett and a shared disbelief in victory.

The team reconciles after a second rapid-fire montage, and the team heads up to finals in the Lava Coast and against Mane. 

During the finals, Mane injures Jett quite severely to no foul, which may be the most basketball thing possible. Jett then has to come back into the game after Archie is given a timeout for getting aggressive over the lack of a penalty. Because this is a children’s film, the Thorns win with the powers of teamwork and friendship and defeat Mane. 

The victorious Thorns return to Vineland to celebrate the city’s supposed last win, but then Modo reveals that the recurring element of being a proficient Uno player actually meant something, and that he won the ownership of the team in a very high stakes game. Everyone hugs and laughs and the credits start playing.

The film is formulaic but keeps things fresh with fun animation and unique characters.

The film advertises itself around a single protagonist, the literal goat Will Harris played by Caleb McLaughlin. Will is an outside shooter who focuses on three-pointers, which I doubt can be a more blatant homage to Curry. The character is a scrappy youngster with something to prove and has one big shot to prove his greatness but just misses the goalposts and is humiliated in front of everyone. 

His struggles are mostly himself against a society prejudiced against “smalls,” which are any small-to-medium sized animal. The film also gives Will’s height at 5 foot 7, a solid bit shorter than other players like the 9 foot 1 Jett or the 11 foot 10 Modo. Ignoring the incredible societal implications of a caste system based on height predetermined at birth, the moral the film tries to prove is that you can be anything if you work hard for it.

But then arises a surprise second protagonist: Jett Fillmore, the best Roarball player of all time. Her struggles are more focused on her own issues, such as an inability to pass to teammates and fears that she has aged past her prime.

Jett manages to provide the film something it desperately needs: a compelling protagonist. She actually grows and changes as a character as the film progresses, as opposed to Will who remains stagnant.

Another character that I quite enjoyed was Modo. He comforts the uncomfortable and discomforts the comfortable. He seems like an orthodox oddball that uses foreign biological functions and strange body movements as a vessel for slapstick comedy, and he is one.

Modo is a goofy character, but the style of comedic relief he brings works for the film because no one else tries to fill that niche. The characters all manage to fill some niche without competing for joke space.

In addition to not having the most miserable plot or least interesting characters on earth, the animation of the film is crisp. The film is of similar quality to “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” released last September by the same studio, but with its own unique visual style. The purples and golds of the previous hit are traded out for vibrant greens and oranges as well as an emphasis on slo-mo shots rather than smear frames. 

The environments are sprawling and unique for each biome they travel to, whether they be the tundra, a desert or an active volcano. Each court’s gimmick looks natural and important without feeling shoe-horned in.

“GOAT” isn’t the greatest film of all time, but it is still a worthwhile watch.