arvin Mange (Schneider) wants to be a cop, just like his father, who died in the line of duty. But he's just an evidence clerk who lives in a garage and gets no respect--not even from the schoolchildren who tour the police station. They handcuff him and spray-paint "loser" on his shirt. The runty Mange can't even pass the police-academy obstacle course, where he's beaten up by an old lady. He orders "badger milk" from a television ad, thinking it will give him strength.
But Mange can't make any headway with the cute environmentalist Rianna (Haskell), whom he meets in the men's room. Meanwhile, the other cops--especially the muscular Sgt. Doug Sisk (McGinley) and Chief Wilson (Ed Asner)--think he's such a wimp that they don't invite him to the squad softball game. Alone in the station, Mange receives a robbery 911 call. On his way to the scene, he loses control on a mountain road and plummets off a cliff.
The mysterious Dr. Wilder (Caton) drags Mange from the car and takes him to his animal-filled barn-laboratory. Mange drifts in and out of consciousness on the operating table as Wilder performs some unholy experiment.
Back home, Mange has peculiar scars on his back--and a butt-full of hair. At the police station, he's told he's been missing for eight days. But he feels great. He can outrun a race horse. And in the airport, a new keen sense of smell helps him uncover a drug smuggler. Suddenly, Mange is a hero and the newest member of the police force. Even Rianna finds him attractive. Mange attributes his new strength to the badger milk.
But Mange discovers that uncontrollable urges come with his new abilities. Sisk is getting suspicious--and Dr. Wilder tells Mange that his new powers come from transplanted animal parts. If he's not careful, the animal may take over.
A turkey that's not a complete dog
The Animal comes from Saturday Night Live alumnus Schneider and is the first produced screenplay of co-writer Brady. The film gives the Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo star an excuse to get in touch with his inner chimp, goat, dog, bear, cat and dolphin for laughs, and the movie doesn't seem to have ambitions beyond cheap yuks.
Which is fine, as far as it goes. The movie is funniest when Schneider gets a chance to go wild, so to speak: licking his leg, sniffing butts, feeding baby birds out of his mouth. A wrestling bit with an orangutan and his smarmy come-ons to a goat are particularly amusing.
But the film's story--kind of a fairy tale with fart jokes--is rudimentary at best, though Schneider brings some charm to his hapless character. Haskell--the Survivor I contestant who makes her big-screen debut--shows surprising appeal, though her role is largely that of a straight man to Schneider. The camera also seems to linger a little too much on Haskell's tanned and toned physique, which in any case is already familiar to millions of Survivor fans. At least she has clean hair and doesn't eat a rat this time around.
The other players fill their cartoon characters as best they can, though it's weird to see Asner in this movie, playing a loopy small-town police chief. McGinley's gung-ho psycho cop is intermittently funny.
Beyond the man-as-animal humor, the movie's jokes are pretty lame. Especially bad are the cameos by Schneider's SNL classmates Adam Sandler, who also executive-produced, and Norm Macdonald. Macdonald's dim townie elicited few laughs and lots of puzzled looks from a preview audience.
