I liked how they kept a lot of the animal traits for the characters without losing the anthropomorphic aspects. They were animals first and had the humanoid traits second. They also took the time to develop not only the primary but the secondary characters.
At heart this is yet another underdog sports movie. It just happens to involve animals instead of people. But those animals are so darn likeable (mostly) that you accept them for who they are.
My favorite is still Jett the cat. Having her sitting on the bench lapping out of a bowl of water instead of using a sports bottle was perfect. Using water spritzers to correct her behavior was also a chef's kiss.
There's the standard crew of characters you would expect - the low esteem coach, the greedy owner, the anxious player, the low self-esteem player, the insecure player, the weird player. And as you would expect the intent is to forge them into a team using the publicity stunt character of the goat.
I will say, thankfully, they did not overuse the goat "bahhh" and well they could have. It was done correctly and with restraint. Everything seemed to be fine-tuned to use to maximum advantage and stay just on this side of the line for not making it annoying.
All the sports tropes are here plus the whole big vs little thing. There's the down to earth goat who dreamed of playing but the game was never meant for anyone but the big animals. He still practices and finds what he can do well. He also finds out what the weaknesses are of playing against the big animals. It takes some help from the team for him to figure out the way to use what he does best.
Jett is the aging superstar who desperately wants to win the trophy. She's been the one taking charge, leaving the coach out in the cold. She, along with the rest, figure out how to be a team.
There's a single protagonist and that helps keep everyone focused on the goal. There's plenty of other animals on other teams but this one is the only one that has a personal beef with the team so it keeps the story tightly focused on that. He's a star player, of course, so it's important for them to beat him.
Like so many of these movies the main character - the goat - lost his family. Father was never in the picture, mother died when he was younger. I kind of dislike how often that card gets played. He's got a found family in the diner where he did delivery but still, it feels cheap to do that. They bring it up at appropriate times how she wanted him to play and dream big. It's his inspiration and he writes it on his shoes.
The various themed arenas are interesting and the games are fun to watch. The team owner is quite literally a pig so calling her that when she sells off the team just when they're going to the finals isn't out of line. That one has a "Major League" feel to the story aspect. It makes sense from a financial perspective to take a losing team that's doing well and sell it tho. The piggy part is that she sold the franchise and none of the players are going with. She tells this to Jett (captain) and Goat hears it. They disagree on whether or not to tell the team repeatedly. She says no, he says yes.
The final game involves the player they all hate. He plays dirty and injures Jett. At that point they tell the team what's happening and they decide to go all out to win anyway. Jett has a knee injury and is out of the game but shows up to play more as a distraction. The other team puts more players on her, letting the rest of the underdog team play to their best advantage. It goes down to the wire and of course, the underdog team wins.
They're still being sold so their press conference isn't really happy. Until the weird player shows he bought the team, well, actually won it from the other owner playing some odd card game with cards from all kinds of different games. So everyone is happy. Redemption happens where it needs to happen and where it doesn't they stay the way they are.
It's got enough going where kids will be entertained by the animals and parents can enjoy the rather good story. I recommend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment