The Animal

The Animal
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Luke Greenfield
Screenplay by	Rob Schneider Tom Brady
Story by	Tom Brady
Produced by	Barry Bernardi Carr D'Angelo Todd Garner
Starring	Rob Schneider Colleen Haskell John C. McGinley Guy Torry Edward Asner
Cinematography	Peter Lyons Collister
Edited by	Jeff Gourson
Music by	Teddy Castellucci
Production companies	Columbia Pictures Revolution Studios Happy Madison
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Releasing
Release date	June 1, 2001 (2001-06-01)
Running time	83 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$47 million[1]
Box office	$84.7 million[1]

The Animal is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Luke Greenfield, written by Rob Schneider and Tom Brady, and starring Schneider, Colleen Haskell, John C. McGinley, Guy Torry, and Edward Asner. The film depicts a police station evidence clerk who is critically injured but unknown to him he is put back together by a mad scientist who transplants animal parts, resulting in strange permanent changes to his behavior.

The film received negative reviews.

Plot[]

In the town of Elkerton, Marvin Mange (Rob Schneider) is an awkward, clumsy nice-guy who dreams of being a police officer like his dad was. He continuously attempts to pass the physical test to become a full-fledged police officer. Despite his repeated attempts, he is unable to finish the obstacle course. Marvin gets constantly mistreated by heartless and sleazy police sergeant Doug Sisk (John C. McGinley). He works in the police station as an evidence clerk and is friends with airport security guard Miles (Guy Torry) who is a victim of "reverse racism" and fellow cadet Fatty (Louis Lombardi).

One day, while alone at the station, he receives a robbery call from a restaurant owned by Mr. Tam (Raymond Ma). With no other officers responding to the call, he attempts to take it himself but ends up driving off the road, tumbling down a mountain and seriously injuring himself. Just as the car finally comes to a stop, a boulder falls on top of it and he passes out.

Days later, Marvin returns to his normal life with no memory of what had happened. Suddenly, he's full of life while not noticing surgical marks on his back and fur on his rear end. He can outrun horses, mean dogs are now scared of him, and he does not need his asthma medicine. He thinks it is due to his late-night TV purchase of "Badger Milk", which is guaranteed in the ads to make him stronger.

One day at the park, Marvin meets Rianna (Colleen Haskell) while she's out walking her dogs. His animal-like tendencies are slowly taking him over. When a frisbee is thrown in his direction, he cannot control himself, and he jumps to catch it in his mouth.

He goes to the airport to talk to Miles about his problem. While there, Marvin sniffs out a man trying to hide heroin in his rectum. For uncovering a drug smuggler, Marvin is declared a hero and is made a full-fledged police officer by Chief Marion Wilson (Edward Asner).

As days go by, Marvin's animal instincts are becoming stronger. He often wakes up in strange places, and subsequently, hears about animal attacks that occurred in the middle of the night. Because of these attacks, the mad scientist Dr. Wilder (Michael Caton) believes that Marvin is out of control. Dr. Wilder takes him to his laboratory, and explains about the grafts and transplants that saved Marvin's life and gave him remarkable animal powers with certain troublesome side effects.

Later at a party thrown by the Mayor of Elkington (Scott Wilson), Marvin chases after a cat and destroys everything around him and gets fired by Chief Wilson as a result. During his reprimand, he hears something, jumps into the nearby lake and rescues the mayor's son (Bret Smrz) using powers derived from a sea lion and a dolphin. He is swiftly reinstated.

Chief Wilson questions Marvin about the late-night attacks on cows owned by Bob Harris (Bob Rubin) because one of the witnesses made a police sketch and it looks like Marvin. Chief Wilson puts Marvin on paid leave.

Rianna goes to Marvin's house, where he has barricaded himself inside. They spend the night together, but Marvin wants to be tied up so he cannot hurt anyone. In the morning, he finds himself untied, courtesy of Rianna. Suddenly, the police show up outside. An attack on a hunter later happened that night and the police have come for Marvin. Rianna convinces him to run.

Marvin escapes to the woods, where a huge chase ensues. The police have organized an angry mob as a search party to capture Marvin. While running through the woods, Marvin finds Dr. Wilder. The scientist tells him that there was another "patient" of his that is out of control, and he is in the woods looking for it. Dr. Wilder's pursuit is hindered due to getting claws on one of his feet.

Sgt. Sisk confronts Marvin and is about to shoot him. Suddenly, the other "animal" jumps from a tree and defeats Sisk. The other "animal" is Rianna which is witnessed by Dr. Wilder, Miles, and Fatty as she only attacked the hunter who would've attacked the turkey vulture that she released into the wild. Just then, the angry mob and the police arrive to take out Marvin. Miles takes the blame for everything and orders the mob to do what they should do. Once the mob thinks a black man was responsible, the mob members don't want to take action causing Chief Wilson to call off the hunt much to the dismay of Miles.

One year later, Marvin and Rianna get married, open an animal sanctuary, and have a litter of children that each look like Marvin. While watching television, they see Dr. Wilder win the Nobel Prize. He says he owes it all to his fiancée Yolanda, who is the same woman from the Badger Milk commercial. When she turns around to kiss him, there are large scars shown on her back, implying that Wilder performed the experiment on her as well.

Cast[]

• Rob Schneider as Marvin Mange, a police evidence clerk who get animal parts put in him.
• Colleen Haskell as Rianna "Hummingbird" Holmes, an animal activist who Mange falls for.
• John C. McGinley as Sgt. Doug Sisk, a sleezy police sergeant of the Elkerton Police Department who picks on Mange.
• Guy Torry as Miles, an airport security guard who is friends with Mange and is a victim of "reverse racism" where he has been claiming that there is reverse racism towards him since he's black.
• Edward Asner as Chief Marion Wilson, the chief of the Elkington Police Department.
• Michael Caton as Dr. Wilder, a mad scientist who saved Mange's life by putting animal parts in him.
• Louis Lombardi as Fatty, a fellow police cadet at the Elkerton Police Department who is friends with Mange and Miles.
• Bob Rubin as Bob Harris, a farmer whose cows are attacked by Mange.
• Scott Wilson as the unnamed Mayor of Elkerton
• Michael Papajohn as Patrolman Brady
• Ron Roggé as Patrolman Jaworski
• Raymond Ma as Mr. Tam, an Asian man whose restaurant was robbed.
• Sebastian Jude as Lost Boy
• Philip Daniel Bolden, Deker Daily, Timmy Deters, Hannah K Ford, Megan Harvey, Mitch Holleman, Mollie Rae Dodson, and Charlie Stewart as Evidence Room Kids
• Arthur Bernard as Elderly Jogger
• Tim Herzog as Badger Milk Host
• Berglind Icey as Yolanda, a woman who works in the "Badger Milk" commercial.
• Bret Smrz as the Mayor of Elkerton's son
• Norm Macdonald as a Mob Member who asks angry mob-related questions to Sisk.
• Adam Sandler as a Townie who is part of the angry mob. Sandler did his rendition of the Townie that Schneider portrayed in The Waterboy and Little Nicky.
• Brianna Brown, Amber Collins, and John Farley as Other Mob Members
• Cloris Leachman as Cat Lady (uncredited)
• Harry Dean Stanton as Hunter (uncredited)

Wes Takahashi, former animator and visual effects supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic, makes a cameo appearance as a news reporter.^[2] Fred Stoller also cameos as a news reporter.

Reception[]

Box office[]

The Animal debuted on June 1, 2001, grossing $19.6 million U.S. in its opening weekend (#3 behind Shrek and Pearl Harbor). With a production budget of $47 million, the movie grossed $84,772,742 internationally.^[1]

Critical response []

This film received negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 30% based on 83 reviews, with its consensus stating: "While less offensive and more charming than recent gross-humored comedies, The Animal is still rather mediocre".^[3] Metacritic gave the film a score of 43% based on reviews from 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[4] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+.^[5]

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "An outrageous and imaginative summer comedy."^[6][7][8] Robert Koehler of Variety magazine wrote: "The Animal is never more nor less than stupid, but stupid in ways that deliver goofiness rather than rampant humiliation."^[9] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described it as "an Adam Sandler reject" and wondered how this "raunchy innuendo wrapped in a PG-13 rating" got past the censors.^[10]

Rob Schneider was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actor of the Decade for his performance in the film.^{[citation needed]}

Controversy[]

Despite receiving mostly negative critical reaction, one supporter of the film at the time of its release was film critic David Manning who gave the film critical praise. In late 2001, Manning was revealed to be a fictitious character created by Sony to fake publicity for the film. At the time, Sony claimed that the error was due to a layout artist who entered 'dummy text' into print advertisements during their design, which was accidentally never replaced with real text.^[11]

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Animal

• The Animal at IMDb
• The Animal at AllMovie
• The Animal at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Animal at Box Office Mojo