GOAT movie: It’s always better to be the underdog than the greatest of all time

Where there’s a sports movie, there’s an underdog movie.

The two genres are inextricably linked at this point. No one wants to see a story about champions who are good at everything and then keep on winning. There’s no adversity, there’s no conflict and there’s no tension.

The sports movie is particularly suited to the underdog story because there is a quantifiable measure of success at the end – you win that game, you avoid relegation, you knock out your Soviet rival, and you prove the doubters wrong.

Along the way, you learn to rely on and trust other people and recognise the value to being part of a team. It makes for such a satisfying resolution, and audiences skip out on a high, holding onto that feeling of triumph as if it was their own.

That’s the other reason why the sports underdog story has been such an enduring formula. It has universal relatability.

No matter what position you occupy in life, whether you’re part of the 1 per cent elite, at the very top of your profession, or if you’re a pleb, barely eking out a living, everyone sees themselves as an underdog.

If you’re actually part of the downtrodden, the marginalised or the overlooked, that resonance is obvious, the onscreen underdog narrative provides a clear inspiration where it tells you, that no matter your lot in life, you’re special, and there is a way out.

The most pessimistic downer still secretly burns with a flicker of hope, because otherwise what’s the point. If the Clovers can go to the national cheerleading championships and win, if The Mighty Ducks can fly, then so can you.

Even the most privileged people on Earth born in a mansion full of silver spoons project themselves onto these characters, because no one wants to believe themselves unworthy of what they have. They worked for it, OK? They deserve it. They were Rocky during the training montage.

So, those nepo babies welcomed into the bosom of the family business or got that “starter loan” from daddy, still believe they’re fighting against expectations and derision, hence, they’re an underdog.

In the David and Goliath battle, no sees themselves as Goliath.

This is why we love movies such as Field of Dreams, League of their Own, Invictus, Cool Runnings, Moneyball, Hoop Dreams and Remember the Titans. Even the mid ones such as The Boys in the Boat or Eddie the Eagle are still satisfying because there’s the pay off in the end.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t care about the game or the competition. Football was not really the point of Ted Lasso or Bend it Like Beckham, nor was golf the reason for Happy Gilmore.

Just as GOAT isn’t actually about basketball. It’s not even called basketball, because the game within the animated film is called roarball but it operates largely by the same rules, but adjusted for, well, anthropomorphic animals. A giraffe isn’t going to dribble the ball the same way as LeBron James.

Speaking of real-life basketball royalty, Steph Curry is one of the producers of the film, and the love of not just the game but the fans is imbued into every frame, but, like the rest of its genre, you don’t actually need to be into sports to be into GOAT.

The title, of course, is a play on the acronym for Greatest of all Time, frequently used in sport, but also to denote its title character, Will (voice of Caleb McLaughlin), a pygmy goat with big dreams.

Big dreams is actually a tagline for the film, except GOAT didn’t get to use it because Marty Supreme pre-empted it by making it the centrepiece of its marketing.

Will lives in Vineland, which is where roarball was founded. The city’s team, the Thorns, has been on a losing streak for a long time, and its long-time star a black panther named Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union) is fighting against the perception she’s past her time.

The team has an open spot, and after going viral in a video, Will, who has tremendous speed, dexterity and shooting accuracy, is recruited to the team.

But he’s teeny weeny, a “medium” compared to the “bigs” such as horses, warthogs, rhinos and Komodo dragons. How could he possibly expect to not die on the court?

Will is the ultimate underdog – or undergoat, apols – because absolutely no one, sometimes even himself, thinks he’s got what it takes to compete at that level.

The movie is fun, fast-paced and speeds along. The animation is bright and appealing, and the voice performances, which also includes Aaron Pierre, Nicola Coughlan, Nick Kroll, Jenifer Lewis, Patton Oswalt and Curry are all winning.

If your kid drags you along to GOAT, you’re not going to walk out bored or mad. GOAT is not the greatest of all time, but it’s perfectly amiable.

Because no matter the packaging, any semi-competent sports underdog story is going to hit you where it matters. It’s going to reinforce this idea we have of ourselves, correctly or not, and there is something very clever about a genre that everyone identifies with.

GOAT is in cinemas