The new movie, “Animal,” starring Rob Schneider and “Survivor’s” Colleen Haskell takes a bizarre look at the sexual desires of animals.
Rob Schneider stars as Marvin Mange, a good-hearted guy who has an incredible amount of bad luck, as his movie characters usually do. Marvin’s dream is to become a police officer like his father, but he just can’t seem to get it right.
His problems are highlighted by an incredibly funny scene during which Marvin runs through the police cadet’s obstacle course.
Several days after miserably failing the obstacle course, Marvin’s life changes forever. A robbery call comes into the police station and Marvin is the only one there. Fearing that other cops won’t make it in time, Marvin speeds as fast as he can to the scene but ends up driving off a cliff.
An enormous boulder then smashes Marvin and his car. Miraculously, Marvin survives because a crazy animal doctor, played by Michael Caton, reconstructs his crushed body. He uses animal parts to replace Marvin’s badly injured organs and this is where the fun begins.
Marvin’s senses become incredulously superior to those of a human, and he also begins to speak in the language of animals. His new interest in animals leads him to meet Rianna, played by Haskell, who is a free-spirited nature lover.
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Schneider has some hysterical interactions with animals, and his physical comedy rarely ceases to amaze audiences. It is this comic ability that makes this movie funny, even though it hardly deals with any everyday life issues, except for random discussions of racism, which are absurd and unnecessary.
A character named Miles, played by Guy Torry, has no lines other than those that perpetuate racism. He constantly discusses how society supposedly views blacks in a negative manner, and he tries much too hard to be humorous.
All in all, “Animal” is rather funny, but not funny enough that it is worth seeing anywhere outside of a bargain theater. However, if you do go see it, pay close attention to the mob mentality scene, where you’ll find cameos from a couple of Schneider’s old
“Saturday Night Live” buddies, including Adam Sandler.
Judging from the success of some of the “SNL” alumni’s recent movies, leaving “Saturday Night Live” may not have been the wisest career move.
