The Animal (2001) Columbia/Comedy RT: 83 minutes Rated PG-13 (some crude and sexual humor) Director: Luke Greenfield Screenplay: Rob Schneider and Tom Brady Music: Teddy Castellucci Cinematography: Peter Lyons Collister Release date: June 1, 2001 (US) Cast: Rob Schneider, Colleen Haskell, John C. McGinley, Guy Torry, Edward Asner, Michael Caton, Louis Lombardi, Norm McDonald. Box Office: $84.7M (US)
Rating: ½ *
Okay kids, it’s time for bed. Settle down please. Johnny, jump into the bed not on it. No more apple juice, Susie. You’ve had enough. You’ll be tinkling all night, that’s why. Hey, who wants a bedtime story? You do? Then lay back, close your eyes and listen as I tell you the story of The Animal.
Once upon a time there was a man named Marvin Mange (Schneider, Deuce Bigalow), an awkward evidence room clerk who really wants to be a police officer but can’t because he’s too short and weak to finish the obstacle course. All the other policemen are mean to him especially Sgt. Sisk (McGinley, Point Break) who picks on him for the same reasons as every bully EVER.
Then one day while Marvin is minding the station, a robbery call comes in. Since all the other cops are off playing softball (Marvin wasn’t invited), he answers the call himself. On the way, he gets into a bad accident and almost dies. Luckily, a doctor (Caton, The Castle) finds him and fixes him all up. When Marvin returns home (with no memory of what happened), he’s different. He’s stronger, faster and able to sniff things out in people’s butts. That’s how he catches a drug smuggler at the airport and becomes a local hero. He’s also made a real policeman which makes Sgt. Sisk even meaner. Marvin soon finds out why he’s been acting like an animal since the accident. The doctor who saved him is a mad doctor who replaced all his broken parts with animal parts as an experiment. Now Marvin behaves like one.
Physically, Marvin is a better version of himself even though he’s just as clumsy. The problem is that he hasn’t yet learned how to control his animal instincts. He can’t stop himself from chasing frisbees, eating out of the trash, humping mailboxes and putting the moves on barnyard animals. After a particularly embarrassing incident involving a cat at a fancy garden party, Marvin distinguishes himself by saving the mayor’s son from drowning in a nearby lake, acting like a dolphin while doing so.
Marvin’s love life gets better too. He meets a cute environmentalist named Rianna (Haskell from the first season of Survivor) who works at an animal shelter. After a weird meet-cute in a men’s room (insert fart joke here), they go on a date to a vegetarian restaurant where Marvin proceeds to lick her, make loud, post-arousal animal noises in the men’s room and mark his territory in an effort to fend off the advances of an amorous Italian waiter openly hitting on Rianna. Yes Johnny, it means peeing on the floor. Yes Susie, they fall in love. May I continue? Thank you.
Marvin gets into trouble when livestock starts turning up dead at local farms. The description given to the police of a hairy man running from the scene looks just like him. He can’t say for sure if he did it or not. Some mornings, he wakes up in strange places with no memory of how he got there. Maybe he is a killer. He barricades himself in his home (a garage) by building a beaver dam. One night, Rianna comes to see him. He tells her the truth about himself before asking her to tie him up. Then they….. Johnny? Susie? Oh good, they’re finally asleep. Good night, kids, sweet dreams. I’ll just tiptoe out of the room and quietly close the door. There we go. Now let’s really talk about The Animal.
If not for all the crude humor and sex stuff, The Animal would be ideal for kids. The premise alone sounds like one of those dopey live-action comedies Disney made in the 70s. It probably would have starred Kurt Russell, Joe Flynn, Phil Silvers and Michael McGreevey. It might even have been funny. At the very least, it would have been funnier than this cow pie of a movie. In its present form, The Animal is spectacularly unfunny. In fact, it doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same review as the word “comedy”. That it came out the same year as Corky Romano and Zoolander makes me surprised comedy survived the year of 9/11.
Scheider is neither the first nor last SNL star to not make a successful jump to big screen stardom. Let me qualify that remark. He’s okay as a supporting player- e.g. Home Alone 2, Demolition Man- and a bit player in several Adam Sandler vehicles (“You can do it!”). He doesn’t cut it as a leading man. He’s an annoying little twerp capable of working the nerves of every adult in the room within two minutes of entering it. I really don’t find him all that funny. He’s made some stinkers and The Animal is right at the bottom of the list with the second Deuce Bigalow movie.
His chemistry with co-star Haskell is non-existent. It’s not entirely his fault; half of it is hers. She’s cute, but she can’t act. I don’t what possessed the makers to cast her instead of an established comedy actress. If I had to guess, I’d say no actress in her right mind would go anywhere near The Animal. McGinley brings immaturity to a new low with his performance. Guy Torry (American History X) plays a friend of Marvin’s who thinks everybody around him is guilty of reverse racism. His character is an offensive racial stereotype. And would somebody please tell me what Edward Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) is doing here? To his credit, he looks sufficiently embarrassed.
The Animal even fails on the most fundamental levels of cinema (as if that term even applies). It’s poorly put together. Scenes are strung together in a way that only vaguely resembles a real movie. At a scant 83 minutes, which is TOO long for this movie, it’s clear the studio did some serious cutting before unleashing it on an undeserving public. Given how NOT funny everything in The Animal is, I shudder to think what was deemed too unfunny to leave in.
Movies like The Animal make me think about the bit in the Constitution about cruel and unusual punishment and how it should also apply to movie audiences. There’s no crime that heinous to warrant such treatment of another human. The indignity of….. uh oh, it sounds like the kids are awake again. Let me go check on them.
Oh, you guys want to know how The Animal ends? All right, everything turns out okay for Marvin and he lives happily ever after, the end. Now go to sleep. Good night… again.
