Sony Pictures Animation has made the world sit up and take notice in recent years thanks to its first two excellent “Spider-Verse” films, which have dazzled on the big screen, and the highly enjoyable and downright infectious “KPop Demon Hunters,” the most-watched title in the history of streaming giant Netflix, with more than 500 million global views.

Now the studio brings us “GOAT,” an underdog tale of a small hooper with a big heart.

While we won’t go so far as to call it “baaaaaad” — sorry, last goat joke, we promise — it’s not in the class of the other movies.

In auditoriums this week, “GOAT” is an example of what we’ll call “short-attention-span theater,” a flick too busy throwing stuff against the wall, with too little of it sticking, to find its emotional core.

It’s promising early on, with its expectedly great looks obvious from the start and an effective-enough introduction to its likable lead character, Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin). We meet the scrappy goat when he’s just, well, a kid — as he’s being taken to see his first roarball game by his loving mom.

We should stop here and explain that roarball is a lot like basketball, only it's played by animals and on potentially hazardous surfaces such as ice and one that sits precariously below stalactites. The co-ed game is played exclusively by large creatures, or “bigs,” who are happy to repeat a commonly used phrase: “Smalls don’t ball.”

Nonetheless, as Will watches the hometown Vineland Thorns — with his favorite player, superstar black leopard Jett Filmore (Gabrielle Union) — play, he says, “That’s gonna be me, Mom.”

A decade later, with Mom gone, diner delivery man Will holds on to that dream — trying to sneak practice time at a venue known as “the cage” before the bigs kick him out — even as he’s struggling to hold on to the room he’s renting.

Meanwhile, Jett is still the Thorns’ star, but she’s never brought home the Claw — the league’s championship trophy — with some fans suggesting that, deep into her career, “she’s washed.”

In town to take on the Thorns with his team, the Magma, reigning roarball league MVP Mane Attraction (Aaron Pierre), shows up at the cage to take on all ballers brave enough to go against him for cash. When Will puts up his rent money to face off with Mane, he gets the best of the cocky horse, if only momentarily.

Still, the little goat does enough to go viral, and he’s soon signed by the Thorns’ publicity-hungry warthog owner, Flo Everson (Jenifer Lewis), as the team’s sixth player. When asked by the excited Will if Jett is on board with this, Flo lies through her tusks by claiming it was the star’s idea.

Boy, that is not the case, as Jett — the de facto coach, holding much more power than the teams’ actual leader, Dennis Cooper (Patton Oswalt) — refuses to let Will on the court with her and the other team members: high-strung ostrich Olivia Burke (Nicola Coughlan); Modo Olachenko (Nick Kroll), a Komodo dragon with a big personality; defensive specialist rhino Archie Everhardt (McLaughlin’s “Stranger Things” castmate David Harbour), who’s also a girl dad; Lenny Williamson (Stephen Curry), a giraffe who also aspires to be a rapper.

Of course, Will’s time in purgatory lasts only so long, “GOAT” from there bouncing its narrative ball all over the place wildly. There’s a potentially compelling story about an older player mentoring and then passing the torch to a younger player, but the story by Nicolas Curcio and Peter Chiarelli and screenplay by Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley only flirts with it.

Director Tyree Dillihay oversees an affair that is energetic and likely to appeal to plenty of young viewers but decidedly lacking in strong storytelling. “GOAT,” which gets some mileage out of the dual meaning of the word, which in sports also is an acronym for “greatest of all time,” succeeds in celebrating the culture that surrounds basketball. That aspect of the movie takes it only so far, however.

Again, it does look pretty darn cool, the filmmakers utilizing tech developed for video games, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, for some of its undeniable razzle-dazzle. Plus, the character designs are distinct and the world they inhabit is well-conceived and executed.

And “GOAT” does deliver a few humorous moments, our favorite being a frustrated Jett putting in earbuds to listen to a song in which a cat repeatedly sings “meow,” but it’s not exactly a laugh riot.

Lastly, the voice performances are solid, with “Stranger Things” star McLaughlin helping to craft Will into an appealing hero.

The movie’s ties to real-world basketball include Union, wife of retired NBA star Dwyane Wade, and, of course, Curry, a longtime star for the Golden State Warriors. However, even the use of Curry feels off; why have arguably the greatest of all time when it comes to long-distance shooting not voice a sharp shooter in the movie?

“GOAT” has some game, but for all the shots it takes, it scores too few points.

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‘GOAT’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for some rude humor and brief mild language)

Running time: 1:40

How to watch: In theaters Feb. 13

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