Osmosis Jones came out in the summer of 2001 and promptly died at the box office. I still cannot understand why: it was written and directed by the gross-out kings, the Farrelly brothers, and stars the always hilarious Bill Murray and features the voices of Chris Rock and David Hyde Pierce (Niles on “Frasier”). This film is part animated and part live action.
Bill Murray is Frank, a slob of a zookeeper. He is also a single father with a young daughter who adores him, but is concerned about his unhealthy lifestyle. Right away, we see she is right: Frank has a hard-boiled egg for lunch at work, and a monkey grabs it and puts it in his mouth. Frank fights the monkey for it, the egg lands at the bottom of its cage and is covered in God knows what. Frank, citing the “10 second rule” (if it’s on the ground for less than 10 seconds, it’s still edible), actually eats the germy, disgusting egg.
The egg has a deadly germ on it, so after Frank eats it, the camera follows the egg in his mouth and once in his body, the film becomes animated. In Frank’s body, there is an entire community of cells that live like humans. Arteries are expressways, the brain is like the White House, and the stomach is like an airport, with food, medication, fluids, and germs “landing” at all hours of the day. Since these beings live in Frank, he is their God: instead of saying, “Thank God,” they all say, “Thank Frank.” Very witty stuff indeed, and there are so many jokes in the background, such as billboards (Peace in the Mid Ear!), that it is easy to miss a lot of them.
Chris Rock is the voice of the title character, Osmosis Jones, a white blood cell rookie cop. He wants to be a part of the big action, but he is clumsy and new, so he is the butt of his police department’s jokes. One day, he notices a saliva boat (used to clean leftover food out of Frank’s gums) that has been burned and crashed; clearly there is an evil force afoot and Osmosis must find out whom. On the outside, Frank is ailing after eating the egg, so his daughter insists he take a cold pill. The cold pill, Drix (David Hyde Pierce) arrives in Frank’s stomach and begins to “soothe irritation,” under the watchful eye of Osmosis. Osmosis convinces Drix to partner with him to find the evil force. Now if you have ever seen “Frasier,” you are familiar with David Hyde Pierce’s immense talent at playing prim, prissy Niles Crane. Drix is very similar to Niles, so Pierce is therefore the perfect casting choice and is riotously deadpan.
As Osmosis and Drix investigate, they encounter the evil germ, Thrax, voiced by Laurence Fishburne. What’s interesting here is how the animation changes between characters- while Frank’s interior body is animated similar to “SpongeBob SquarePants,” Thrax is scary and dark. In fact, the animation of Thrax is quite comparable to Frank Miller’s work from DC Comics, or Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, and if you are familiar with those works, then you will understand how cool and adult Thrax looks; this ain’t a Disney movie, in other words. Anyway, Thrax has decided he wants to make a name for himself in the medical books by being the worst germ in history: he wants to kill Frank within 48 hours, his personal best. Osmosis overhears the plan and must team with Drix to save Frank.
Frank, in the meantime, is dying as all this fighting is taking place inside him. Naturally, since the Farrelly brothers directed this, there are some truly disgusting scenes involving Frank. I won’t reveal exactly what happens, as that would ruin the gross surprises, but suffice it to say there are 2 scenes that turned my stomach while concurrently cracking me up that involve snot and zits. Bill Murray is perfect as the grotesque Frank, and Chris Elliot has some priceless scenes as his white-trash brother who is just as seedy.
As Osmosis and Drix chase Thrax, we get a tour of Frank’s body. The mobsters hang out in the armpit, the poor folks live in his butt crack (where Osmosis grew up, and in one of his many memorable lines, he recounts how hard it was as a child in the butt crack: “Do you know how hard it is to make a snowman out of toilet paper cling-ons?”), the criminals are in his rotting toenail, etc. As their universe is crumbling, since if Frank dies, they die too, the incumbent Mayor of Frank (William Shatner) is too preoccupied with running his mayoral campaign against Tom Colonic (Ron Howard) to care about the chaos ensuing around them. Just like real politicians! I love how the writers of the screenplay wildly use their imagine to create this entire community with such sly cleverness and dead-on zingers.
I still cannot understand why this movie tanked since it was one of the funniest of 2001 (the other being Wet Hot American Summer, which also stars David Hyde Pierce). The animation is colorful and jumps off the screen, the script is damn funny and smart, and the live action sequences with Bill Murray are outrageously comical as well. So, rather than rent crap like Corky Romano, try something completely original and rent Osmosis Jones instead. It’s a blast!