UNCLE DON’S VIEWS OF NIL REPUTE

They shoot bad movies, don’t they? They sure as hell did here. “The

Animal” is a celluloid bit of road kill that should have been neutered

and then swiftly put out of its misery, having arrived DOA, DUI and

EIEIO.

A 10-minute idea running 83 minutes that felt like five hours, this

root canal of a flick -- the longer it lasted, the deeper it became --

really starts to hurt any few functioning brain cells a viewer might have

left after the first half-hour or so.

“The Animal” stars some Billy Crystal semi-look-a-like nebbish (Rob

Schneider) who wants nothing more than to be cop, just like daddy.

Trouble is, he’s a pants-wetting twit, a dull-witted, slow-moving

nincompoop of a dullard who has no talents to offer anybody (therefore

eminently qualified for the newspaper business.)

He is ineptly enabled by this broad from the first “Survivor” (Colleen

Haskell), whose acting is so wooden that were she a tree, she’d be the

General Sherman. These two, along with anyone else associated with this

barker, are true monuments to thespian malpractice.

Schneider, playing a doofus small town police property clerk named

Marvin Mange, is the only one in the station when a 911 call comes in about a robbery at the local greasy spoon. Unable to reach the real cops,

with initiative in hand, and brains left behind, Mange takes off toward

the scene in some beater LTD painted in a pseudo “Starsky & Hutch” motif.

Losing control and taking a 1000-foot fall off a 500-foot cliff, Mange

wakes up eight days later, feeling different even if he’s still ugly

enough to gag a maggot. Turns out he’s been rescued and restored to life

by some bug-eyed, overacting, under-talented, English-accented mad

scientist.

This aforementioned wacko specializes in installing animal parts in

humans. He calls it radical-transpeciesectomy. Others might call it a

really bad idea for a movie. But now Mange can growl like Rin-Tin-Tin,

run like National Velvet, swim like Flipper, emit methane like a cow and

think like a guppy. The only thing missing? Pee-wee Herman’s arm.

Mange is now a man of many marginal talents. He can sniff out drugs in

the colons of couriers, cough up hairballs and get up close and personal

with various barnyard critters.

Haskell, the “Survivor” yahoo, is such a breathtakingly awful

cinematic mediocrity, stunning in her complete lack of talent and screen

presence, that it is best to avert one’s eyes when she intrudes upon the

too many scenes she’s in. Rubber duckies have a greater acting range.

Those of you who consider “Dude, Where’s My Car” to be quite

Shakespearean, will find “The Animal” to be quite beneath your standards.

This flick’s plot has bigger gaps than you’ll find in Lauren Hutton’s

front teeth or Nixon’s tapes. You won’t find a bigger bomb in the Enola

Gay. Vivisection would be too kind of a treatment for “The Animal.”

“The Animal” is rated PG-13.

* UNCLE DON reviews b-movies and cheesy musical acts for the Daily

Pilot. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]