Jamie and Patrick lay on their deathbeds. The whole Hartford Whalers family surrounds them with tears streaming down their faces. Even the mascot weeps so loudly that you can hear it through his oversized Headless Kevin James costume. It was a joyous ride being the owners of what was now known as the most successful sports franchise in history. Kyle was at first derided as a buffoon with no coaching experience, but soon the players came to understand the secret ingredient to winning: Love. The love Kyle had for his players took them from bottom of the barrel to top of the league in their very first season and from there they won 33 of the last 50 Stanley Cups. And yet… when they should feel most at peace, both Jamie and Patrick couldn’t help but think back on the moment when they kicked Kevin James’ head clean off. Was it right? Was it true? Maybe Kevin James was a secret serial killer so it was OK that they kicked his head clean off. But it wasn’t the case. Kevin James was not a secret serial killer. He wasn’t even a secret serial killer who only killed serial killers. No, Kevin James was just a successful actor that people liked to watch. And they were just the two guys who kicked his head clean off and rode that to the greatest success mankind had ever witnessed. They look at each other and whisper what only they can understand, “We shouldn’t have kicked Kevin James’ head clean off.” With that they die.
Jamie and Patrick wake up from their daydream to find themselves face-to-face with Kevin James, now finished with his satirical comedy act. They tense, their animal instincts gearing up for the fight that they no longer wanted to have. That’s right! Speaking of animal instincts we are jumping like glorious leopards onto the easy prey that is The Animal starring Rob Schneider. I can’t remember if we saw this in theaters, but it’s possible given that I’ve seen the film more than a few times. It serves a nice transition from the Choice Awards cycle (Teen Choice Award nominees for Choice Wipeout) to the Sooooory Cycle starring all our favorite Canadian actors. In this case, Norm MacDonald shows up in a small part. Let’s go!
The Animal (2001) – BMeTric: 71.4; Notability: 52
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 1.6%; Notability: top 8.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 28.6%; Higher BMeT: Glitter, Jason X, Freddy Got Fingered, Driven; Higher Notability: Pearl Harbor, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Monkeybone, Hannibal, Impostor, Not Another Teen Movie, Ghosts of Mars, Swordfish, Bubble Boy, Scary Movie 2, 15 Minutes, The One, The Affair of the Necklace, Town & Country, I Am Sam, 3000 Miles to Graceland, America’s Sweethearts, Along Came a Spider, Texas Rangers, Don’t Say a Word, and 1 more; Lower RT: Texas Rangers, Soul Survivors, Glitter, All the Queen’s Men, Corky Romano, The Forsaken, Summer Catch, The Wash, Out Cold, Say It Isn’t So, Joe Dirt, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, Head Over Heels, Freddy Got Fingered, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Perfume, The Musketeer, Valentine, Double Take, and 48 more; Notes: Let’s see. We’ve seen all the higher BMeTs, and 10 of the top 20 lowest Rotten Tomatoes. Doing pretty well on 2001 it would seem.
Leonard Maltin – BOMB – A pathetic nobody awakens after a car accident to find that his body organs have been replaced by those of animals (a dog, a dolphin, a horse, etc.). Filled to the brim with bathroom humor, offensive dialogue, gratuitous nudity … everything by genuine comedy. Schneider cowrote; Sandals co-executive produced.
(Shocker there is no mention of Colleen Haskell. That is by far the most notable thing about this film. Anyways, love the BOMB, they are so rare.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBwcksgKcFs/
(They ruin a decent gag right at the start with the garage door wall. Having seen this movie a bunch of times, a ton of that trailer isn’t in the movie. Him coming out of the dog house for example. Also … is it being from the producers of Deuce Bigelow supposed to entice me to watch this film?)
Directors – Luke Greenfield – ( Known For: The Girl Next Door; Future BMT: Let’s Be Cops; Half Brothers; BMT: The Animal; Something Borrowed; Notes: The fact that Half Brothers qualifies is a bit nuts to be honest, I have never heard of it at all. He has two upcoming projects but his last major film was Let’s Be Cops which I’m pretty sure was a financial nothing film.)
Writers – Tom Brady – ( Future BMT: The Hot Chick; BMT: The Animal; Notes: Went to Harvard, claims to have discovered Rachel McAdams, and doesn’t have much in the pipeline except a TV show that is maybe coming out next year.)
Rob Schneider – ( Future BMT: The Hot Chick; BMT: Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; The Animal; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Notes: Much like Sandler seemed to get writing credits on the films he was involved in in the early 2000s. He was of the SNL class that was derided (and fired), but then ended up being considered the best class they had in the 90s.)
Actors – Rob Schneider – ( Known For: 50 First Dates; The Wrong Missy; Home Team; Hubie Halloween; Daddy Daughter Trip; Big Stan; Sandy Wexler; American Virgin; Muppets from Space; You May Not Kiss the Bride; InAPPropriate Comedy; The Reef; Wild Cherry; The Adventures of Panda Warrior; Susan’s Plan; Outback; The Reef 2: High Tide; Wings; Frog Kingdom; Martians Go Home; Future BMT: Click; Big Daddy; The Hot Chick; The Longest Yard; The Waterboy; Mr. Deeds; You Don’t Mess with the Zohan; Grandma’s Boy; Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; Bedtime Stories; Down Periscope; Surf Ninjas; Necessary Roughness; Norm of the North; Eight Crazy Nights; The Adventures of Pinocchio; BMT: Grown Ups; Demolition Man; The Benchwarmers; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Judge Dredd; Little Nicky; Little Man; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; The Beverly Hillbillies; The Ridiculous 6; Around the World in 80 Days; The Animal; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Knock Off; Notes: He’s a bit of a crank. Heavily anti-vaccine, although that’s been going on for a long time. I can’t tell, but the trailer for Daddy Daughter Trip is harrowing … is it makeup, or does he just look that way now? I have no idea.)
Colleen Haskell – ( BMT: The Animal; Notes: She was 6th in Survivor Season 1, and this is her one and only attempt at acting. Apparently she didn’t like the experience. Five people have wiki pages from season 1, of which she is one.)
John C. McGinley – ( Known For: Se7en; Office Space; Point Break; The Rock; Platoon; Identity; Any Given Sunday; Born on the Fourth of July; Wall Street; 42; The Belko Experiment; World Trade Center; Battle of the Sexes; Fat Man and Little Boy; Set It Off; Get a Job; Nixon; A Midnight Clear; Talk Radio; Mother; Future BMT: Nothing to Lose; Three to Tango; Born to Be Wild; Stealing Harvard; Hear No Evil; BMT: Wild Hogs; The Animal; Summer Catch; Get Carter; Surviving the Game; Alex Cross; On Deadly Ground; Highlander II: The Quickening; Wagons East; Are We Done Yet?; Car 54, Where Are You?; Notes: Hell yeah. He’s a BMT All Star. This is the 11th of his films we’ve done, five. That’s easy peasy. Let’s get on it.)
Budget/Gross – $47,000,000 / Domestic: $57,743,062 (Worldwide: $85,191,134)
(Probably made its money back to some degree … but not by much and it depends on what they got internationally. No wonder The Animal 2 wasn’t even in the cards, even without Haskell.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 30% (25/84): While less offensive and more charming than recent gross-humored comedies, The Animal is still rather mediocre.
(Wow, that is a far more mild review than I would have expected. Huh. It is vaguely funny, and at least has a unique viewpoint I suppose. And looking at the New York Times review I suppose I get it.)
NYT Short Review: The goofy new Rob Schneider comedy isn’t the gross-out farce that its title suggests. … Mr. Schneider brings an endearing innocence to a role that others would have played with a nasty leer.
Poster – The Manimal
(I like some of the bold colors on this, but this is really a classic example of a common poster type in the 2000’s. I’ll call it the Knocked Up. In the Knocked Up they make the not traditionally handsome comedic leading man look slightly stupid and then are basically like “yeah… we really made this guy our leading actor… isn’t that hilarious?”… Knocked Up is the one that really stuck in my mind, but in reality pretty much every Rob Schneider vehicle has this exact poster. C.)
Tagline(s) – He wasn’t much of a man… Now he’s not much of an animal. (C+)
(I understand the first part, I’m not sure I understand the second part very well. But it sounds and feels like a tagline. Just not a particularly great one.)
Keyword(s) – wisdom
Top 10: The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), Forrest Gump (1994), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Batman Begins (2005), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Future BMT: 88.6 Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), 84.0 Prom Night (2008), 83.7 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 82.2 You Got Served (2004), 80.0 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009), 79.6 Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), 78.9 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), 77.6 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), 77.2 Superhero Movie (2008), 72.3 Bewitched (2005), 69.4 College Road Trip (2008), 68.9 Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), 68.5 Poltergeist (2015), 68.2 Yogi Bear (2010), 65.7 Halloween Ends (2022), 65.7 The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008), 65.3 Fat Albert (2004), 65.0 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 64.7 The Grudge 2 (2006), 64.5 Darkness Falls (2003)
BMT: Batman & Robin (1997), The Emoji Movie (2017), The Last Airbender (2010), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Crossroads (2002), Norbit (2007), Fantastic Four (2015), From Justin to Kelly (2003), The Master of Disguise (2002), Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), Sex and the City 2 (2010), Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), xXx: State of the Union (2005), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), Little Man (2006), Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015), Taxi (2004), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Freddy Got Fingered (2001), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Zoolander 2 (2016), Kangaroo Jack (2003), Are We Done Yet? (2007), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), The Boy Next Door (2015), Wild Wild West (1999), The Animal (2001), Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), Year One (2009), Are We There Yet? (2005), Marmaduke (2010), Big Momma’s House 2 (2006), The Roommate (2011), Tammy (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), … (and many more)
Best Options (canada): 88.6 Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), 84.0 Prom Night (2008), 77.2 Superhero Movie (2008), 71.4 The Animal (2001), 69.4 College Road Trip (2008), 68.9 Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), 68.2 Yogi Bear (2010), 65.7 The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008), 65.0 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 63.6 Valentine (2001), 61.5 Scooby-Doo (2002), 58.7 Scary Movie 2 (2001), 54.6 The Smurfs 2 (2013), 53.9 Annie (2014), 53.1 Aloha (2015), 52.1 Loser (2000), 51.7 View from the Top (2003), 51.5 Scary Movie 3 (2003), 50.8 Saw 3D (2010), 50.8 Racing Stripes (2005), 49.4 Monster-in-Law (2005), 48.5 White Noise (2005), 48.2 You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008), 47.8 Dumb and Dumber To (2014), 47.0 On the Line (2001), 46.7 You, Me and Dupree (2006), 46.5 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), 43.8 Not Another Teen Movie (2001), 43.8 The Stepfather (2009), 43.6 Chicken Little (2005), 43.3 John Tucker Must Die (2006), 40.9 Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), 40.6 The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013), 39.8 Semi-Pro (2008), 37.8 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), 36.9 The Amityville Horror (2005), 36.6 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), 36.2 The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013), 35.4 Rugrats Go Wild (2003), 33.2 The Last Song (2010), 27.9 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), 27.7 Dracula Untold (2014), 27.0 Taking Lives (2004), 25.7 Idle Hands (1999), 24.8 Terminator Genisys (2015), 24.7 The Internship (2013), 22.5 The Shack (2017), 20.9 Charlie St. Cloud (2010), 19.4 Terminator Salvation (2009), 19.4 Kick-Ass 2 (2013), 19.1 Life as We Know It (2010), 17.0 Saw II (2005), 14.8 The Matrix Revolutions (2003), 14.5 If I Stay (2014), 12.8 Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), 12.8 The Island (2005), 12.7 The Vow (2012), 9.0 The Longest Ride (2015), 7.8 The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009), 3.1 The Butterfly Effect (2004)
(We went high up for this guy. Norm is only kind of in it, but it counts! And obviously The Animal was awards some Kids’ Choice. How could Kids not love this stuff, he almost has sex with a goat!)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 13) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Rob Schneider is No. 1 billed in The Animal and No. 1 billed in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, which also stars William Forsythe (No. 2 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 5 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (2 + 5) + (3 + 1) = 13. If we were to watch Norm of the North we can get the HoE Number down to 9.
Notes – This is Colleen Haskell’s debut as an actress after being one of the final contenders in the first season of Survivor (2000). Rob Schneider said that working with Haskell was one of the unexpected pleasures of making the film.
The newspaper clipping of Marvin’s father features the face of Rob Schneider’s actual father, Marvin (to whom the movie is dedicated) photoshopped onto a police officer. Also, the car in which the lead character has his road accident was originally owned by Marvin Schneider (although several duplicates were also used in the crash sequence).
In both audio commentaries on the Uncut version of the DVD, it is mentioned that Harry Dean Stanton played the part of a hunter staking out the Man-Beast in the forest, but nearly all of the footage ended up on the cutting room floor. He can still be seen, uncredited, being attacked in once scene after Marvin asks Rianna to tie him up.
In June 2001, Newsweek revealed that print ads for at least four movies released by Columbia Pictures, including this one and A Knight’s Tale (2001), contained glowing comments from a film reviewer who didn’t exist. The fake critic, “David Manning,” was the friend of someone who worked in Columbia’s advertising department, and agreed to let his friend use his name. Manning was misrepresented as a reviewer for the Ridgefield Press, a real-life weekly paper out of Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Director Luke Greenfield’s mother deliberately hung around on-set because she was a big fan of Edward Asner.
Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor of the Decade (Rob Schneider)
Bad Movie Twins 