Movie Review: The Animal (2001) seen on DVD and Netflix

Comedy; some scenes may be unsuitable for young children; crude content, language, sexual content throughout including one scene of impending beastiality

This movie follows a man named Marvin Lange, (played by Rob Schneider,) a down on his luck police officer in training who gets some much needed assistance in performing his duties after he is saved from a car accident on route to a police call when he’s the only one in the office by a man who replaces his organs with those of various types of animals. Before long, he begins to exhibit traits which should be attributed to animals though this proves to be helpful to a point in his pursuit of becoming an officer.

In the beginning of the film, Marvin is shown to be a slacker who lives out of his garage. He has his tv, fish tank and other necessities mounted on the garage door. He is shown to be less respected than his fellow police officers due to his lack of training and ability to urinate himself when nervous or embarrassed. This makes him the laughing stock of the police force. Will Marvin be able to turn his luck around with his newfound powers?

I have to admit something. As I am writing this, I’m groggy off Tylenol I had to take prior to watching this film to get rid of a migraine I had. For this reason, the review may not have been as good as all the other ones but I made a promise in my last review that my next one would be on this movie. I was not feeling well as I watched it and had trouble recognizing certain scenes and almost fell asleep while watching it. However, I made it my goal to write a review a day on certain movies no matter how I’m feeling. Even though this was the case, there were a few scenes that stood out to me. I enjoyed the scene where he fights with the orangutan and loses. I also enjoyed the scene where he flirts with a goat and gets rejected, (as made apparent by the fact that he is attacked by it.) I also enjoyed the scene where he gets turned on by his date and goes to the bathroom only for animal sounds to be heard in the restaurant. I quickly learned though that when you’re drowsy, seeing a bird fly when you’re not expecting it can apparently make you think it’s not on tv and this is what happened. A split second scene in the film shows a parrot flying in the pet store as Marvin enters. Though the scene was only a split second long, it would have caused a negative score if the rest of the movie wasn’t so funny. I have to be honest in saying that after that split second scene, I almost had to turn the movie off as it caught me off guard first of all and I hadn’t really been able to pay attention up to that point. On a different note, I seem to remember seeing this movie when it first came out in 2001, (hence me saying I saw it on DVD,) and the scene I remember from back then it the one in which he is seen flirting with the goat. However, I did not remember the rest of the movie, just that one scene which as an 11 year old, I thought was disgusting as it depicted a grown man flirting with an animal.

I can honestly say that this was the funniest movie I’ve seen in a while. It breaks away from the dramatic thrillers I have been watching too much of recently. It was time to expand on my movie genres and this comedy was a step in the right direction. I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend it.

Movie rating: 10 out of 10

Next Review to be determined tomorrow night