GOAT (in theaters)

The thing you have to remember about “GOAT” is that it’s not really a cartoon. It’s a sports movie that happens to be animated. 

If you like sports movies, this isn’t a bad thing. “GOAT” is more of a sports movie than either of the “Space Jam” movies, and if you like basketball and/or underdog teams learning how to come together it’s a pleasant experience. It starts a little slow, but once it gets rolling the team dynamics are good and the new guy has talents other than a big heart. There’s even a touching moment or two. 

The animation is also great, visually distinct and smooth enough to hold up to the show’s constant movement. It also ties community into sports in a way that not a lot of movies do, incorporating it into more than one player’s character arc.

If sports movies aren’t your thing, though, you’re going to be bored stiff. Younger kids might also be bored stiff, since the plot doesn’t really work on a level meant for them. In fact, the movie is really only good for kids of any age who like sports movies, or possibly ones who care enough about real life sports to cheer for a team. It may seem like it’s trying to be Sony’s answer to “Zootopia,” but it’s too obsessed with basketball to really pull it off. 

Which is fine, really. There are multiple types of movies for a reason – there’s something for everybody. You just have to find the right one for you.

Grade: Three stars

Wuthering Heights (in theaters)

If Emerald Fennell was going to butcher “Wuthering Heights” to make a bodice ripper, the least she could have done was make it a good one. 

But no. Her new “Wuthering Heights” is an unbalanced, boring, deeply stupid mess that doesn’t even manage to be sexy. Oh, people are constantly having sex, but everyone feels like puppets so there’s not a shred of chemistry anywhere. Characters’ key personality traits have been gutted, sometimes whole characters, and everyone’s going through the motions without a shred of thought or reason as to why they’re doing what they’re doing. Fennell herself is equally clueless, completely incapable of building any kind of genuine feeling anywhere onscreen. The only successful moment, less than a minute long, is stolen directly from 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice.” Yes, the backgrounds are beautiful, but you’ll be so busy wanting to hit the characters with a shovel you won’t even notice. 

The plot is nothing like “Wuthering Heights,” because when you take away load-bearing characters and Heathcliff’s rage it can’t be. They keep telling us that Heathcliff has rage, but what they actually show is a sad, doe-eyed man sanitized for modern romances. Only that shoots any romantic potential in the foot, because Catherine is still petty and manipulative and what we’re left with is her playing with this poor man like a cat toy and whining about it. There’s no heat here, only vague pity. 

I won’t even go into the appalling fact that Heathcliff, who is firmly not white in the book, is white here while most of the antagonists are not. That last touch is a step even beyond the normal Hollywood casting sins, but she committed so many other crimes in this movie I’m hardly surprised. 

Grade: Zero stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society and the Utah Film Critics Association. Drop her a line at [email protected].

Credit for photo ©Columbia Pictures