Osmose Jones

OSMOSIS JONES / (2001) ***1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

Consider the Farrelly brothers. The majority of a crowd would think of adjectives like shocking and envelope pushing, to describe them, but the most shocking thing about "Osmosis Jones," is the PG rating. Originally warranted a PG-13 rating, still a surprise from filmmakers whose credits include "There's Something About Mary" and "Me, Myself, and Irene," the film finally earned the family friendly PG rating after it was subjected to a re-rating. Peter and Bobby Farrelly are known for their crude, rude, and disgusting sense of humor. Breaking free of their traditional styles, their focus is now on something a little more entertaining than gross-out humor-imagination.

Directing a wildly amusing script by Marc Hyman, the Farrelly bothers are really on to something here. This is arguably their best film to date. Only "There's Something About Mary" stands up against "Osmosis Jones," a film that jumps between live action and cartoon animation. It calculates each moment with the perfect timing. This is not a movie just for this kids, although it's perfectly appropriate for everyone in the family. This is a feast for anyone's imagination. "Osmosis Jones" creates a world we seldom see in the movies-inside the human body.

"Osmosis Jones" is not an extremely funny movie. Only a handful of plentiful laughs occurs in the film. None of the gross-out humor works; the ideas are too jumbled within other ideas to payoff. "Osmosis Jones" does play with a lot of different humor types-from a clever "Titanic" joke that practically winks at the audience, to a laugh out loud performance by SNL veteran Molly Shannon. In "Superstar" Shannon proved to be a nuisance. However, in this film she is a very welcome screen presence.

Bill Murray needs to be in more movies these days. He still has the comic connection with the audience that carried "Scrooged," his best film, to my list of all time favorites. He stars as Frank Detorri, a lazy, slothful zoo worker who would get life behind bars if hygiene was a law. His wife passed away because of a sickness that their young, but healthy and intelligent, daughter (Elena Franklin) believes evolved from poor eating habits.

Frank eats something that contains a deadly virus, and it's up to his immune system to fight back. Osmosis Jones (voiced by Chris Rock) is one of those white blood cells who serves as a cop and must capture various villainous germs and viruses inside Frank. Although not a popular individual among the world of Frank, especially with the Mayor (voiced by William Shater), who is running for re-election very soon, he does have a crush on his assistant, Leah (voiced by Brandy Norwood). After the virus, named Thrax (voiced by Laurence Fishburne), accumulates villainous help and starts on a plan to kill Frank in a record time of forty eight hours, Osmosis must work with a cold pill named Drix (voiced by David Hyde Pierce), to stop this monstrously powerful germ before it's too late for Frank and his daughter.

The movie has some very clever material-various parts of the body represent neighborhoods in the City of Frank. For instance, the stomach is the airport with frequent departures to the colon. The Mafia relaxes in a steam room located in the armpit. Lawyers hang out in a hemorrhoid. When a zit pops up, it's seemingly the party room for the entire body, complete with a dance floor and strippers. Just simple content like that makes "Osmosis Jones" worth a watch. Even adults will enjoy the live action humor, as well as the film's zest, energy, and irony.

In a time when summer movies are at an all time low, "Osmosis Jones" is here to save they day. It's one of the most clever films of the year.

When you mention the title of this film to someone, they just look at you and say "What?".

Yeah, nobody went to see this film when it came out. I think it's because how do you market a film like this? Since this takes place in the human body, there's all kinds of gross out humour in it. Some of it is too much for a PG rated film.

That's my biggest problem with this film and why it wasn't marketed very well. It's gross. The scene where the nose dam breaks and a giant tidal wave of snot comes out is not what you're mean to see in a family film. Especially on the big screen. The scene where Frank vomits on the teacher and it is shown in a newspaper headline, we actually see the vomit. You don't show people vomiting in a PG film. Not only that, but it's part of the story. Making gross out gags part of the story is not a good idea.

Also, the scene where the zit is ready to pop, we get a big giant close up on it which is enough to make anyone cringe.

It's almost like Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. A show loaded with gross out humour. But that was for adults. This is meant to be a family film.

Now, the stuff I do like about it; the animation is great, it's very creative, (making the stomach the airport, the brain is city hall, the armpits are the steam room, I could go on)Laurence Fishburne was fantastic as Thrax. I kept forgetting it was him. Even if you don't like this film, you have to admit, Thrax is awesome. The music's great too. I like all the body puns as well.

Not a film for everyone, but has gained a cult following on DVD.

I had never heard of Osmosis Jones before, but I grew up watching the animated series based on this movie so I went into it with excitement and a nostalgic drive.

What I got was rather mixed. Let me explain.

The live-action parts pretty much sucked in my opinion. This guy named Frank (Bill Murray) is a single father taking care of his daughter and is a really unlikable father figure. How are we supposed to sympathise with a lazy and egotistical doof? I never felt sorry for him one minute. Mix that with gross-out humour which wasn't even helped the slightest by Bill Murray who is usually really funny.

Enough said about that, because the animated segments were actually pretty awesome. The world inside Frank's was impressive by how it was crafted. How it functions by having a whole community run by a mayor (William Shatner) and a police force of white blood cells and a lot of real-life city stuff showcased a lot of creative effort was put into it.

It centers on a white blood cells Osmosis Jones (Chris Rock) who is that kind of cop who does things his own way and the others at the police station do not approve of his ways, but he is later assigned to a new case with a partner to keep him on track, a cold pill named Drix (David Hyde Pierce). Sure, it follows all the buddy cop movie clichés with nothing new added, but the world they must explore and the colorful characters they meet make it entertaining albeit predictable.

Speaking of the colorful cast of characters, the most interesting and memorable of them all has to be the villian Thrax (Laurence Fishburne) who is menacing and merciless and has a deathcount very high for a PG rated movie.

Without being boring I found that Chris Rock and David Hyde Pierce seemed to do their usual schtick with Rock being hip and a loudmouth and Hyde Pierce doing his quirky and excentric british gentleman voice. But Fishburne surprised me. He could as easily just have put on his Morpheus voice, but he didn't. I'll give him more credit for that.

The live-action segments is the movie's biggest drawbacks with an unlikable main character and lowbrow humour as you would expect from the farelly brothers, and frankly (no pun intented) the animated segments aren't perfect and the transitions between the two don't always work.

But overall Osmosis I found Osmosis Jones enjoyable, but flawed. I understand why it failed in theaters, but I have seen so much worse elsewhere.

The Farrelly brothers are dipping into the animation pool. It's colorful and primitive animation. It's pretty good, but that's not really the problem. Surprisingly the problem is Bill Murray and live action stuff.

Frank Detomello is a slob. He eats a hard boiled egg covered with a deadly germ. And we travel inside Frank to see white blood cell policeman Osmosis Jones (Chris Rock) battle evil virus Thrax (Laurence Fishburne) with the help of Drix (David Hyde Pierce).

Bill Murray looks awful as he gets sicker and sicker. I have to ask if we're supposed to laugh at Bill? It's just gross. Not the gross out humor that the Farrellys are known for. It isn't funny at all.

The animated sections are much better. In fact I prefer they cut out the live action stuff. Chris Rock does a good voice. He has good chemistry with David Hyde Pierce's Drix. They need a few more jokes, but I like the City of Frank.

Whoever made this has a big imagination about what goes on inside the human body. It's very witty and smart. The whole rookie cop cliche who messes up and is THIS close to being pulled off the force and has a hunch a teams up with an unlikely buddy and ends up being right (for example, Rush Hour) is being given a whole new twist. The Farrley Brothers have done it again- and made a solid B+ stand out comedy. B+, 8/10