'The Animal': Spoor Excuse for Humor By Megan Rosenfeld Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 1, 2001

Colleen Haskell and Rob Schneider in "The Animal." (Frank Musi/Columbia Pictures)

The star and central whirlwind of this cretinous enterprise is Rob Schneider, "Saturday Night Live" veteran and supporting player in such works of art as "Big Daddy" and "Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo." Schneider is a gifted comedian and deft at slapstick; somewhere inside him is a Jerry Lewis or Jim Carrey crossing his eyes and trying to come out. The material he chooses is certainly a showcase for his talents – not many actors can convincingly come on to a lady goat – but it's so darn dumb that you wonder where his career is headed exactly. (I could make a toilet joke here, but I refuse.)

The premise of "Animal" is that Schneider plays Marvin Mange, a would-be small-town cop who can't pass the physical, which is an obstacle course devised by Chief of Police Ed Asner that includes being mugged by a karate-chopping old lady. Marvin, the police evidence clerk, is subsequently left alone in the police station and takes it upon himself to race to the scene of a burglary in progress. On the way, his car crashes down a hill – a very long hill – and somehow he winds up in the care of a mad scientist who replaces his internal organs with animal organs.

Suddenly he can smell and hear as well as a dog, and catch a Frisbee in his mouth. He feeds a starving little turkey buzzard by chewing a wiggling worm and letting the bird eat from his mouth. He sniffs out drugs on a passenger at the airport – one guess where the guy is hiding the heroin – and becomes a hero and a police officer as a result.

There are problems, however. He grows thick hair on his rear end and finds himself breaking into the butcher shop and scarfing down raw meat. He relieves himself under the table at a restaurant and humps a mailbox when he sees a sexy girl. He also has a problem controlling himself around animals, as in one of the few actually funny scenes in the film. He finds himself irresistibly drawn to a nanny goat and advances on her with the smirking moves of a Don Juan in a singles bar. After he salaciously feels her rump, she boots him into the ozone. Right on, Goatie-dear.

The rest of the shenanigans proceed along predictable lines. There's a jealous cop (John C. McGinley) who is out to get him. There are two buddies who know his secret – Louis Lombardi as Fatty (he's fat and likes pornography) and Guy Torry as Miles (he's constantly on guard against people giving him breaks just because he's black). And of course there has to be a love interest – Rianna, an animal lover, played by Colleen Haskell. She seems to be officially known as "Colleen Haskell of 'Survivor,' " a reference to her only previous credit. She's cute. Almost as cute as an orangutan played by one named Louey.

There are some in-jokes that spring up toward the end. Adam Sandler, a co-producer of this nonsense and the star of some of Schneider's earlier movies, appears in a cameo, as does former SNL cohort Norm Macdonald. They portray members of a mob of townsfolk out to get Marvin, who by this point is suspected of eating a cow. If I had a mob, I'd send it after the yo-yos at Columbia Pictures who gave this pu-pu platter the green light. Someone there should be having a cow, not eating one.

"The Animal" (84 minutes) is rated PG-13 for bad language, genital humor and stupidity.