A comedy without fangs, The Animal actually has a strong concept. The film attempts to poke fun at how helpless humans are to control their animal urges, and occasionally it hits its mark. The scene where Marvin (Rob Schneider) must continually excuse himself from dinner with his girlfriend in order to attend to one of the base instincts she is triggering in him provides a clue as to where this film could have gone. But avoiding a box-office harming "R" rating was more important than playing this Darwinian concept out to its fullest. Schneider has a sweet, likable quality in the film, as does Survivor contestant Colleen Haskell, making her film debut as his animal-loving girlfriend, but neither is given a real character to play. Not extreme enough for the gags to flower, nor written well enough to explore the romantic angle, The Animal settles into bland inoffensiveness.