Jamie
The Animal has a long and storied history in me and Patrick’s bad movie journey. Sure we watched the film when it came out. How couldn’t we? It starred America’s sweetheart Rob Schneider and Survivor-contestant-turned-actress-turned-not-an-actress Colleen Haskell. Survivor was HUGE. I can’t recall if we saw it in theaters (probably not), but we certainly rented it. Then years later when we first went our separate ways post-college we decided to start what is essentially the Chain Reaction category between each other. From our distant locales we would give each other a movie to watch using an actor or actress from the movie we had just watched. At one point I punted Pearl Harbor over to Patrick and I remember him saying “Don’t do this. Let’s not make each other watch movies we don’t want to watch.” But I disagreed and Pearl Harbor was his. As punishment Patrick gave me The Animal (probably through Guy Torry) and the venture quickly fizzled out. So this is at least my third time watching the film. Cool cool cool.
To recap, Rob Schneider is the opposite of an animal. He is a weakling with asthma who has his heart set on joining the police but can’t get past the obstacle course portion of the entrance exam. After his latest failure he is humiliated by being forced to mind the police station while all the real police officers go off to play softball. While they are away a call comes in and Schneider can’t help but respond. On his way, though, he crashes his car off a cliff and is horrifically mangled. We see him taken by some Dr. Frankenstein style doctor who puts him back together. He has no memory of the event, but finds that he was missing for weeks and now has the speed, strength, smell, swimming etc. of animals. He is quickly put onto the police force when he sniffs out some heroin at the airport, and then further excels when he saves the Mayor’s son from drowning. He even gets a date with his local celebrity crush, Rianna. This is all despite the fact that his behavior gets increasingly bizarre and there are multiple attacks reported around town that seem to be a result of his tendency to enter an animalistic like fugue state. The doctor that fixed him eventually explains what has happened and tries to help him curb his appetites, but it doesn’t work and he is forced to escape into the woods. A mob assembles to track him down, but before they do he finds that in fact Rianna is also an “Animal” and is behind the attacks. The mob arrives and is dead set on killing him until his black friend, Miles, takes the blame. The mob then feels uncomfortable with the whole idea and calls it off. Rob and Rianna smooch and have a litter of babies. THE END.
There is something about a real dumbo comedy that you can’t get anywhere else. It has one purpose: it is trying to make you laugh. Every second of this film is trying to make you laugh. There is almost no sentimentality, because why would there be? There is something admirable about that. I wouldn’t say I laughed a whole lot at the hundred jokes they threw at me, but there were a hundred of them and so of course I laughed. I liked that. I does feel like we lost something by not having the option to watch The Animal in theaters laughing along with a bunch of similarly-minded idiots. This is definitely a streaming movie now and no one would ever think about it ever again. But The Animal persists. Cons: stupid, acting is terrible, plot twist at the end doesn’t make any sense. Pros: laughing feels good.
Hot Take Clam Bake! I mean… Rob Schneider was dead the whole time? That seems almost too obvious. He crashed his car off a cliff and then had a boulder roll on top of him. He is dead and in his final moments imagines how it would be that he would not only survive but become everything he hoped and dreamed he could be. He’s a super cop! He gets the girl he saw on TV! He doesn’t get murdered by a mob! By the time he’s imagining his TV crush is also an Animal and is having a litter of offspring with him you know his brain is entirely on the fritz and death is mere moments away. Hot Take Temperature: Survivor Season 1 Level Hot.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! What are we talking about? Are we talking about Rob Schneider with a boatload of animals all up in him? Let’s go!
Ah, one of those movies I’ve seen too many times for the weirdest reasons possible. Surely it was just on all the time on television. Well … maybe, but that isn’t why I watched it. I watched it once in theaters, once in a summer chain reaction challenge thing Jamie and I did, and then once on a lark. This is the fourth time I’ve seen The Animal for no real discernable reason.
If I were to pick a single Rob Schneider film as an example of his comedy I think this would be it. His character is a mostly sweet but hapless weirdo, and a strange thing happens to him that makes him the hero in the end. It isn’t funny, but it also manages to not be too terribly offensive which is a rarity for Happy Madison productions of the era.
Colleen Haskell isn’t a good actor, but she’s better than I would expect I think.
It isn’t surprising that she left the experience with a bad taste in her mouth. Of all the things that “age poorly” in the film the worst is probably just how they shoot her. Often in skimpy clothing and specifically as the romantic interest. She has very little to do in the film otherwise. It is understandable, but an unfortunate thing to subject a normal person to.
There are some laugh out loud moments … or maybe like exhale strongly. The entire storyline about Guy Torry’s various attempts to get people to acknowledge his race. McGinley cranking it up to 11 as usual. Ed Asner has a lot of Rip Torn energy in this one which works. And finally the triple head fake at the end I think is genuinely a very funny joke, where they seem to reveal the other Animal three times before finally revealing the twist that Haskell is the other animal.
And of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Norm’s short but pretty delightful cameo as … himself I suppose.
I have to repeat: this film isn’t funny. But it also isn’t unpleasant. And Happy Madison was about to go top speed into unpleasantville with a few of Schneider’s follow ups and eventually culminating in Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.
For a Sandler-adjacent film this had a surprisingly small Product Placement (What?) in Slim Jim, which Schneider had to slam in order to curb his animal cravings. Fictional Setting as a Character (Where?) for Elkerton, California. And a Worst Twist for the reveal that Colleen Haskell is an aminal as well.
Read about my Animal sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,
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