‘Goat’ Review: A Go-for-Your-Dream Fairy Tale With a Bold New Animated Look and a Brashly Winning Attitude

For a decade, maybe more, the animated look and aesthetic established by “Toy Story” in 1995 gave the Pixar movies their eye-popping surface wonder. What we quickly came to think of as the Pixar house style totally ruled — as digitally animated artistry, and as commerce. So it was no big surprise to see that it spread. In essence, the Pixar style, that tactile bubble sheen of reality, became the mode of all mainstream Hollywood studio animation. And when then happened, it ceased to be exciting. There were still many good animated features, but the look and feel of them became standard, comparable to how the hand-drawn animated aesthetic of Walt Disney, so glorious in the era of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia” and “Bambi,” came to seem less magical in the age of “Cinderella” and “Peter Pan.”

All of which makes “Goat” a vibrant surprise. It…