Osmosis Jones

Plot

Frank Detorre (Bill Murray) is an unkempt, slovenly zookeeper at the Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. Depressed by the loss of his wife years earlier, he copes by eating unhealthily and ignores basic hygiene, to the annoyance of his young daughter Shane (Elena Franklin).

Inside Frank's body, Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones (Chris Rock) is a rebellious white blood cell officer of the Frank PD, who was fired from his job working in the kidneys and demoted to patrol duty in the mouth following an incident at a science fair where he caused Frank to vomit on Shane's science and P.E. teacher, Mrs. Boyd (Molly Shannon) after seeing a virus enter Frank's body in an oyster Frank ingested after observing Zach's oyster project. Facing a challenge to his re-election prospects, Mayor Phlegmming (William Shatner) doubles down on Frank's consumption of junk-food, despite concerns from his secretary Leah Estrogen (Brandy). This causes Frank to eat a boiled egg which moments after been inside an ape's mouth and making it fall on the ground, allowing Thrax (Laurence Fishburne), another deadly virus, to enter the throat. Unwilling to admit responsibility, Phlegmming instructs Frank to take a cold pill through brain signals. The suppressant, Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff (David Hyde Pierce), proceeds to disinfect the throat, covering up any evidence of Thrax's arrival. To his displeasure, Ozzy is subsequently assigned to assist Drix in his investigation.

Thrax assumes leadership of a gang of sweat germs and launches an attack on the mucus dam in Frank's nose, nearly killing Ozzy and Drix before Frank inhales them into the sinuses. Based on information from one of his informants, Ozzy goes undercover at a nightclub located within a zit on Frank's forehead, intending to infiltrate Thrax's gang. Once there, Ozzy discovers Thrax's plan to steal chromosomes from the hypothalamus only to be discovered and forced to call in Drix, who manages to destroy the club with a grenade. The explosion bursts the zit during a meeting with Mrs. Boyd, causing it to land on her lip, ruining his apology. In response, Phlegmming closes the investigation, fires Ozzy and orders Drix to leave the city.

Having survived the assault, Thrax breaks into the hypothalamus gland and steals a DNA bead from a chromosome. His actions disable Frank's ability to regulate temperature, causing his body to burn up. Thrax then kidnaps Leah and flees to the mouth to escape. As Frank is taken to the hospital in a fever coma, Ozzy and Drix reconcile and proceed to rescue Leah, but Thrax escapes using pollen which causes Frank to cough, expelling Thrax from his body. Ozzy pursues Thrax to the surface of Shane's left eye, and later her false eyelash when she blinks. Thrax's physical superiority and heated claws allows him to pin Ozzy down. He threatens to kill Shane but becomes stuck in the false eyelash; Ozzy's pliable body allows him to escape as the eyelash slides off and lands in a glass of alcohol, dissolving Thrax.

As Frank's temperature rises over 108 degrees, his heart begins to shut down. Riding one of Shane's tears, Ozzy reenters Frank's body with Thrax's necklace of DNA beads, reviving Frank just in time. Having narrowly cheated death, Frank commits himself to living a healthier lifestyle with the help of Shane, while Ozzy begins a relationship with Leah (whom he has been unsuccessfully wooing throughout the film) and is re-instated to the force with Drix as his new partner. Phlegmming loses his position as mayor and is reduced to working as a custodian in the bowels, accidentally ejecting himself from the body by pushing a button that triggers Frank's flatulence.

Animation voice cast

Live-action cast

Production

Osmosis Jones went through development hell during production. The animated sequences, directed by Tom Sito and Piet Kroon, went into production as planned, but acquiring both a director and a star actor for the live-action sequences took a considerable amount of time, until Bill Murray was cast as the main character of Frank, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly stepped in to direct the live-action sequences. As part of their contract, the Farrelly brothers are credited as the primary directors of the film, although they did no supervision of the animated portions of the film. Will Smith was interested in the part, but in the end his schedule didn't permit it.

Osmosis Jones was originally rated PG-13 for "crude language" and "bodily humor" in 2000. Warner Bros. edited the film to make it family-friendly, and in 2001 the film was re-rated PG for "bodily humor".

Box office

Osmosis Jones opened on August 10, 2001 in 2,305 theaters worldwide. Upon its original release, the film lost a considerable amount of money, and was the second-to-last production for Warner Bros.' feature traditional animation department (following The Iron Giant, and followed by Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which both also lost money upon their original releases). The movie opened at #7 in its first opening weekend at the U.S. box office, accumulating $5,271,248 on its opening week while earning $2,286. The film soon grossed $13,596,911.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 55% based on 108 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The animated portion of Osmosis is zippy and fun, but the live-action portion is lethargic." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, the film has received an average score of 57 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.

The animated parts of Osmosis Jones were praised for their plot and fast pace, in contrast with the criticized live action segments. Robert Koehler of Variety praised the film for its animated and live-action segments intervening, claiming it to be "the most extensive interplay of live action and animation since Who Framed Roger Rabbit". The New York Times wrote "the film, with its effluvia-festival brand of humor, is often fun, and the rounded, blobby rendering of the characters is likable. But the picture tries too hard to be offensive to all ages. I suspect that even the littlest viewers will be too old for that spit." Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4.

The use of crude humor in the film, as seen in most films directed by the Farrelly brothers, was widely criticized. As such, Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader described the film as a "cathartically disgusting adventure movie". Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide praised the film's animation and its glimpse of intelligence although did criticize the humor as being "so distasteful". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly felt that the film had a diverse premise as it "oscillates between streaky black comedy and sanitary instruction", however the scatological themes were again pointed out. Jonathan Foreman of New York Post claimed Osmosis Jones to have generic plotting, saying that "It's no funnier than your average grade-school biology lesson and less pedagogically useful than your typical Farrelly brothers comedy." Chris Hewitt of Miami Times described Chris Rock's, Brandy Norwood's and Laurence Fishburne's voice work as Osmosis, Leah and Thrax respectively as "classy" although considered the film to be politically correct as all three of these actors are African-American. Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun praised David Hyde Pierce's performance as Drix, claiming him to be "hilarious" and "a take-charge dose of medicine". Despite of the mixed reviews, the film received numerous Annie award nominations including Best Animated Feature (losing to Shrek)

Soundtrack

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on August 7, 2001 by Atlantic Records. The soundtrack failed to make it to the Billboard charts, but Trick Daddy's single "Take It to da House" managed to make it to 88 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.