The Animal is a 2001 comedy film directed by Luke Greenfield and starring Rob Schneider.
Marvin Mange is a man who works as an evidence clerk at a police station. He is a meek and uncoordinated person who gets bullied by his neighbor's dog and Sgt. Sisk (John C. McGinley). While doing some work, he gets a call from a police officer about a robbery. Unfortunately for him, no one is coming there and Marvin is forced to go there by himself.
While going to the scene of the crime, he gets into a car accident where he is completely crushed. That is, until he is rebuilt as a man with animal parts and their instincts. It helps a lot in his work, though, and he's promoted to full officer. Then vicious attacks on the townspeople are attributed to a supposed beast-man, making Marvin the prime suspect...
Tropes included
- Alliterative Name: Marvin Mange.
- Animalistic Abilities: Marvin gains the abilities of various animals after an operation that involves putting the organs of several different animals inside of him.
- Ass Shove: Marvin's newfound powers allow him to sniff out some drugs on, or rather IN an airline passenger.
- Then at a press conference, reporters ask him about how he found the drugs and then one reporter asks what's up his (that is the reporter's) butt:
Marvin: (sniffs) Car keys.Reporter: He's good.
- Bait-and-Switch: Played for Laughs. While looking for Marvin, one of his friends becomes too hungry to continue on and stares at Miles hungrily. The next time he is shown, he is seen eating something and has blood on his mouth...only to turn out to be wild berries and Miles is completely fine.
- Black Dude Dies First: Defied - when Miles takes the blame for everything Marvin did, everyone in the Mob goes from "KILL THE BEAST" to "I'm not gonna be part of a mob that killed a Black Guy." leaving Miles calling them racist as they walk away.
- Body Horror: The idea of putting animal organs into a human being is rather disturbing. While the only known physical side effects Marvin has is his hairy butt, the Mad Scientist himself has an animal's foot while Rianna has six nipples.
- Brick Joke: Yolanda from the badger milk commercial gets married to the Mad Scientist - while getting her own animal upgrade.
- The Bully: Sgt. Sisk.
- Chekhov's Gun: Miles and his wild theories on positive discrimination saves Marvin's ass and his own in the end.
- Everything Is Racist: Inverted by Miles, who's paranoid that white people are only nice to him out of guilt because he's black. It helps save Marvin at the end though, since he takes credit for the killings and the mob refuses to kill him for fear of looking racist.
- Hate Sink: Police sergeant Doug Sisk is a sleazy jerk who bullies Marvin for no other reason other than he could. Even after Marvin's promotion into a full-fledged police officer doesn't stop Sisk from bullying. Jealous of Marvin's heroic acts, Sisk is the most trigger happy among the angry mob as he can finally be the town's hero and kills the person he despises the most.
- Granola Girl: Rianna "Hummingbird" Holmes is a downplayed example; she's introduced saving a tree on television, and she works at an animal shelter.
- Kids Are Cruel: The children visiting the police station, after learning that Marvin is just an evidence file clerk and has not actually passed the police officer examination yet, handcuff and attack Marvin before writing LOSER on his forehead with spray paint (Sgt. Sisk interrupts them after they write LOSE, but because Sisk is a bully himself, he finishes the word by writing the R himself).
- Never Mess with Granny: One of the obstacles in the police officer examination course is a harmless-looking old woman who quickly turns out to be proficient in hand-to-hand combat.
- No-Respect Guy: Marvin, at the beginning of the movie, but this changes after he gets his animal upgrades and is able to accomplish great feats.
- Not Me This Time: After Marvin's animal instincts start taking over, Marvin finds himself blacking out and waking up in strange places, such as in a butcher shop having eaten almost everything inside. However, Marvin is innocent of attacking the hunter; that was Rianna's doing, as the hunter was after her turkey vulture so she had to scare him off.
- Red Herring: Towards the climax, three Red Herring cliffhangers set up the reveal of three possible suspects: Marvin's friend, the Mad Scientist himself, and even Ed Asner's police chief character. It turns out to be Marvin's girlfriend.
- The Reveal: There's another man-beast prowling about, and Marvin finally meets the other beast when they save Marvin from being shot by Sisk. Marvin says "You..." in surprise while facing the camera. The next shot is a cut to Rianna with glowing eyes, revealing that Rianna is the other beast.
- Shout-Out: The scientist who put Marvin back together using animal parts owns a pet monkey, but in-universe, the monkey used to belong to a pop star. As the scientist says, the monkey "really misses the pop star. I'm not allowed to say who." Then the monkey starts moonwalking.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Marvin and Rianna's first meeting doesn't go smoothly as Marvin embarrasses himself, but Marvin gradually wins her over by being a nice guy (although it also helps that Rianna doesn't notice some of Marvin's uncontrollable animal behavior, such as fighting with one of the animals at her shelter), and Rianna clearly prefers Marvin to the overbearing Sisk when she gets out of Sisk's flirting by pretending Marvin had already set up a date with her.
- Torches and Pitchforks: A mob is assembled at one point, though one would-be member keeps slowing things up with inconvenient questions.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Miles saves Sisk on his trail, but he still tries to kill him!
