Osmosis Jones

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.

Osmosis Jones is a comedy of human proportions, I guess. It works enough and when it works well it's a good movie. Although when you think about it the plot-line inside Frank's body (frank is played by Bill Murray with no shame in great form) is rather routine and for me was the only thing keeping this from being really good.

Still, it might be a worthwhile movie, more for kids than adults, but it it watchable for all. Various voices include Chris Rock, Brandy Norwood, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce and William Shatner. Pleasant most of the way and sometimes cool. B

Okay, I think I've found the Sadly Underrated Movie of the Year.

I think that, between this and "the Iron Giant", Warner Brothers Animation has GOT to spring for a better promotion department. Really, all they'd have to say is something like: "We just let the creators of 'Something About Mary' and 'Dumb and Dumber' make their own cartoon. Brace yourselves."

All complaints aside, and none of them are really the movie's fault, this is one of the most inventive animated films I've seen in a very long time. The characters and backgrounds are allowed to look and move in ways that are downright refreshingly bizarre. The visuals are very imaginative. The humor, while funny, is still very much what you'd expect from a Farelly Brothers movie that takes place inside a very sick man, so I wouldn't recommend it to little kids or the weak of stomach. If you have a little future A+P major, however, this is going to blow their mind. Give it a look!

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.

I thought this movie was very good. The people leaving bad reviews are being too critical. This movie was meant to be fun. The way the inside of the body is a city, the white blood cells are the police, fireman, etc., the lymph nodes were the police stations, veins were highways, the stomach was a bus station/airport type place, and the germs and bacteria were, of course, the criminals, and so on. This movie gives a very imaginative way the body works to fight infection, as if the body was a city of people just like in the real world. You may need to have some sort of knowledge about the body to get some of the puns and jokes, maybe not very young kids will get it, but they will like the animation...this movie is even good for adults. I give the movie 8/10...I thought it was a very entertaining movie!!!!!