it's always a shame when good comedic talent goes bad , and a pleasant surprise when that finally lands a decent role in a funny film . nothing has been expected of rob schneider since his departure from the hellhole of mind-numbing roles like the copy guy richmeister and the weed guy on saturday night live , as well as bit parts in ridiculous muppet movie sequels and adam sandler comedies . but rob schneider is a funny man . i remember watching him at the improv in san diego when i was 12 years old and laughing my ass off at his brilliant portrayal of elvis on a fishhook . i was 12 , but what the hey ? modern comedy comes from its ability to not take its story or its characters seriously . the farrelly brothers and woody allen have taught us that . recent failures like joe dirt and schneider's last film deuce bigalow : male gigolo owe themselves to a seriousness they try to create by treating their main characters as martyrs for the audience to sympathize with and pity . the animal does no such thing , avoiding this common mistake totally and developing into an enjoyable and hilarious 90 minutes . our tale : marvin mage ( schnieder ) is a loser to the tenth degree . he makes screech from saved by the bell look like a romantic lead in a shakespearean tragedy . stuck with the lowly job of file clerk for the local police force , marvin longs for the glory and honor of becoming a real police officer like his dearly departed father . when marvin answers a 911-robbery call , he ends up in one of the funniest car crashes ever imprinted on celluloid . a deranged scientist ( michael canton ) rescues marvin from the wreckage , rebuilds his body robocop-style with animal parts ( refugees from a traveling mexican circus ) , and marvin's newfound animal instincts naturally kick into full effect when he's released back into the general population . stupid ? yes . i just never would have thought a cross-dressing monkey doing the moonwalk would be so damn funny . marvin meets and falls in love with the chick from the first season of survivor ( colleen haskell ) , uses his extra-keen sense of smell to sniff out drugs from perpetrators' rectal areas , rescues a drowning boy flipper-style , consumes enough slim jims to keep macho man randy savage happy , humps a mailbox , and tries to make sweet love to a goat in heat . again : stupid ? yes . but the bizarre situations dreamed up by screenwriters schneider and tom brady work , and schneider sells it for all he's worth . trust me --it's funny . very funny . i'm almost ashamed that i laughed out loud so much . the only real problem is that it all falls apart in the end , a good idea stretched way beyond its limits . the script degrades with too many plot twists , relying on cameos from norm macdonald and adam sandler for comic relief in its last 20 minutes . in the end , it's , ahem , beating a dead horse . with the animal under his belt , schneider demonstrates that the innate comedic talent i witnessed years ago is still down there somewhere . let's just hope this isn't a fluke for the richmeister . 
