`The Animal'.(The Dallas Morning News)

Rob Schneider is right at home in "The Animal" since the new comedy is less a movie than a "Saturday Night Live" sketch stretched to feature-film length.

A mad scientist operates on sweet loser Marvin (Rob Schneider) and stuffs him full of animal parts. Wackiness ensues when the animal parts start taking over.

Before the operation, Marvin was a wimp who became winded while getting dressed. After the operation, he is a muscled wild thing with all sorts of superhuman animal powers. Most of the film occurs as a series of comic stunts based on Marvin's newly acquired powers _ sniffing drugs on a smuggler (can you guess where the drugs are hidden?) or getting amorous with a goat in heat.

To dismiss this movie as stupid is to miss the point. Of course, it's stupid. If you object to the utter lack of a story, the sloppy sequencing of events or the stick-figure characterizations, this movie wasn't made for you anyway. In this style of filmmaking, nothing matters but getting to the next joke. Who cares how you get from the scene where Marvin chews up a worm to the scene where Marvin almost has sex with a monkey, so ...