Reviewing a Rob Schnieder film is pretty much an object
lesson in futility – you know it’s going to be rubbish with a few cheap laughs,
but let’s do it anyway.
This one dates from his golden period where he crapped out a
couple of Deuce Bigalow films along with ‘The Hot Chick’ and ‘Stan Helsing’.
Rob isn’t much of an actor so he relies on mugging a lot and crowbarring in as
many fart jokes as possible. At least he can’t be touched under the Trades Descriptions
Act, as you are served up pretty much what you’d expect with each outing.
Here Rob plays Marvin Mange a police evidence clerk who
dreams of emulating his late father and becoming a fully-fledged police officer.
He has failed the vital obstacle course the previous four years and pissed his
pants during his last attempt. To add to his troubles, he gets grief off John C
Reilly’s Officer Sisk who is a pumped-up alpha male, and no respect from his field
trip school children.
He does have a couple of friends in a thinly drawn (the
irony!) character ‘Fatty’ and in Miles, a black man who thinks everyone is
being nice to him to atone for 400 years of slavery. He probably had the best
lines in the film and I’m not saying that because he was black!
The action, as it is, starts when Marvin has to answer a 911
call having been left alone at the station. He gets distracted by a seal on the
road and endures an endless car crash as his vehicle tumbles down an never-ending
mountain before being crushed by a boulder. Hopes that he’s dead and we can
stop the film after 25 minutes are dashed when he is rescued by a mysterious stranger.
Through his fevered dreams Marvin has visions of various animals in medical
gear before waking up at the crash site a week later. He isn’t very curious
about his situation, but soon we see changes in his character and abilities.
It turns out he has been fitted with various animal parts,
as you do, and can now run fast, swim like a dolphin and smell things up
peoples’ butts. After a successful drugs bust and a water based rescue Marvin
becomes a full police officer and starts dating local tree hugger Rhianna, who
also runs an animal sanctuary.
The only fly in the ointment is an unknown predator referred
to as ‘The Beast’ which is attacking people and eating cows – could these
nocturnal events be down to Marvin or is he not the first to have endured
animal part transplants? Soon an angry mob of townsfolk are hunting for The
Beast and we have to wonder who is the culprit and can Marvin enjoy a happy
ending?
I’d seen this film 20 years ago and thought it was quite funny. Time hasn’t been kind however and apart from a couple of scenes it was really poor. I’d did like Ed Asner telling Marvin that ‘We’ve all eaten from the garbage’ and the black characters outrage at people being nice to him still translated to today’s easily offended world. It was also fun to see the late Norm MacDonald as an inquisitive mob member and, as is usually the case in Rob’s films, Adam Sandler, this time as a baying rabble rouser.
The wafter thin plot was padded with too many overlong scenes such as those with the orangutan and the goat, but I guess if you’ve booked the animals you better use them! There were a few plot holes which was some going seeing at it was pretty much transparent to start with- I mean, who ate the cows?
As a mindless distraction this squeezes a pass but the
laughs were too far apart and there was no plot or intrigue to speak of.
THE Tag Line : Animal Lacks Bite 51%
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