Osmosis Jones (2001)

Simply Perfect

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

ScienceWorld once did a colourful exhibition called Grossology, in which various parts of human anatomy are presented in garish, cartoony displays. The Farrelly Brother's Osmosis Jones reminds me quite a bit of that, an inspired, juvenile little creation that seems to have slipped through the cracks. Focusing on the human body, or rather one human body in the form of out of shape, sloppy schmuck Bill Murray, it's one of those rare half live action, half animated flicks, a concept which I love but one that only works out if you do it right. It worked magic in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it train-wrecked in Rocky & Bullwinkle, and went more middle of the road in stuff like Cool World and The Pagemaster. Here it works pretty damn well, if a little better on the animated side, where most of the focus is put anyways. Murray is Frank, a walking disaster whose lifestyle reflects the culmination of the Farrelly's career in terms of utmost vulgarity. Zooming inside his body, a sassy technicolor world emerges, sentient forces living in infrastructure not unlike our own, albeit peppered with so many delightful jokes, gags (some which will kick the reflex into action) and word-plays it's hard to keep up. Chris Rock plays a lively white blood cell cop who responds when Frank eats a hard boiled egg that's home to a deadly virus, and runs all about the City Of Frank chasing it down, joined by a robotic cherry flavoured Cold Pill (David Hyde Pierce). City Hall is Cerebellum Hall in the Brain, the bowels resemble skid row, Mafia bacteria thugs reside in the armpit, and you get the idea. The imagination runs wild here, if a little grotesque in areas. The live action bits suffer in terms of writing and realism, they just feel like a queasy SNL skit and never have enough weight. It's non stop fun when the animation kicks in though, a slightly off-Disney style that stimulates the screen visually and pops with every colour combination you can imagine. My favourite has to be Laurence Fishburne as Thrax, the deadly virus attacking Frank's nervous system, a gangly, evil eyed freak who sports purple dreadlocks, a contagious Freddy Krueger style index finger and enjoys his job a bit too much. William Shatner is great as sleazy Mayor Phlemming too. It's not as much fun as stuff like InnerSpace, and the live action clashes with the animated world in places where it should seamlessly mesh, but it has one admirable quality in spades: imagination. The jokes and ideas within Frank's body are hurled at you a mile a minute, and you'd need to watch it at least twice to catch every little barb and dad-joke worthy pun. Good times.

Osmosis Jones is one of Warner Bros. several animated films that failed at the box office. Some of those films were very good (The Iron Giant), others completely missed (Quest for Camelot). This one is sort of in the middle for my taste. Let me explain.I feel the animated portions are fantastic. The city of Frank is gorgeous to look at, and the characters are well developed. The story is also very engaging, energetic, and fast paced. For a few Kid Rock fans, he makes a cameo with his posse in one scene. These parts alone are worth the price of admission. Which brings me to my main criticism...The live action sequences are boring and uneven. I don't think the audience really cares about the live action scenes. They are obvious filler, they jut out like Excalibur in the stone. These scenes are only crucial at the beginning and towards the end of the movie.Overall, I liked the animated portions of the movie but could do without the live action.

This movie includes a bit of humor that I didn't care for, and a lot of other people probably won't either, but it's definitely worth getting over for the extremely original plot and plenty of other fun aspects.This is an unusual narrative that includes both animation and live action; it's not like in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" or (shudder) "Cool World" where the animated characters mingle with live action ones, it jumps between worlds. The animated world takes place inside Frank Detorre's (Bill Murray's) body, where white blood cells behave like police officers and viruses behave like criminals, living in Frank's body as if it were a city. The City of Frank is run by an irresponsible mayor who has lead to a huge decline in the slovenly Frank's health. Frank ingests an extremely lethal virus named Thrax, and it's up to blacklisted cop Osmosis Jones and cold pill Drixenol to stop him before it's too late. Even in animated form, some of the humor is a little hard to stomach (no pun intended), though not as much as the live action parts. It's interesting that other movies that take place inside the human body like "Fantastic Voyage" or "Innerspace" are actually live action in their entirety, but are definitely less grotesque. The animation is done well, it's energetic and visually appealing. It's fun to see how exactly different sections of the body translate into the concept of it being a city, the zit, the nose, and the brain being the most imaginative areas.Thrax is a cool villain, and he actually kills quite a few characters in various gruesome and brutal ways on screen, which isn't something you'll usually see in a film primarily targeted at younger viewers. Osmosis Jones and Drix make for good protagonists, each having their own troubles they come to terms with. Their relationship is a bit stereotypical buddy cop movie style at times, but there's definitely some good stuff regarding Ozzie's past mistakes and Drix's fears of being ultimately useless.The live action side of things isn't as good as the animation, but it still has its moments. I'm a big fan of Bill Murray, and though he's still funny at times in this, it's definitely not his best work. The live action gross out humor is never outright disgusting, but things like the throbbing zit popping on a woman's lip are still pretty gross.Some unappreciated crude humor aside, I do recommend the film.

This is the perfect movie to watch with your kids. In a very creative and funny way, the producers teach us a lot about our body through the adventure of Osmose Jones, a white blood cell, and Drix, a cold pill. Both live in Frank City, inside the body of Frank, who, despite his daughter's advises, isn't very hygiene and doesn't eat well. He catches a deadly disease and, along with other characters, Osmose and Drix fight against it in a very fun to watch adventure. If you like animation and biology you'll certainly like this movie no matter how old you are. Although the acting isn't great, the movie is mainly an animation so it shouldn't be a big problem.