A policeman white blood cell, with the help of a cold pill, must stop a deadly virus from destroying the human they live in, Frank. When Zoo worker Frank, single father to the young and bright girl Shane, swallows a germ-ridden egg, he gives billions of lifeforms inside his body much work to do. In the "City of Frank", which has its good and its bad neighbourhoods, its own TV station, donut shops and traffic jams, the white blood cell Osmosis Jones is one of the many cops who try to keep up peace and order. Unfortunately, Jones seems to be the only cop in town who does not act by the book, but by his instincts. Even more unfortunately, his instincts don't work out that often, and so he causes more trouble than he does good. But with that germ-ridden egg comes a mortal danger: The evil and deadly virus Thrax arrives in order to kill Frank within 48 hours, just to get his own chapter in the medical books. Starting out with flu symptoms in order to deceive the authorities and the public, Thrax makes his way through Franks body. Accompanied only by "temporary relief of symptoms commonly associated with flu" cold tablet Drix, Osmosis Jones suspects that there is more going on than just a simple flu. Meanwhile, Mayor Phlegmming is much more interested in his re-election than in real problems and tries to keep trouble down. So, it is up only to Drix and Os to stop the "red death" from making Shane an orphan. This was a very clever idea, that effectively shows a live-action sequence, then presents the interior of a character's (Frank - Bill Murray) body in animation. The voice characters play cells and viruses withing Frank's body. I thought it was an excellent idea, very educational and entertaining at the same time. It reminded me of the classic Disney educational animated specials like "Donald Duck in Mathamagic Land" and "Goofy on Defensive Driving", and the Ludvik von Drake shorts about the atom and such stuff.<br/><br/>The voice casting was uniformly excellent, with a great range and personality. There were several great sight gags and action sequences in the animated sections, as well as some brilliant film spoofs (I particularly loved the TITANIC spoof and the JAWS - or general monster movie - spoof especially).<br/><br/>The live-action is somewhat overshadowed by the animation, but Bill Murray does play an eccentric everyman character very well - very reminiscent of his early role in CADDYSHACK, where I first noticed him. The whole zoo setting seem a little off-beat, it made me think of FIERCE CREATURES, though not as much fun. The daughter was okay, if a bit bland. And there's a great comic bit featuring actor Will Dunn as a science student which sets off a great gross-out gag.<br/><br/>I agree with the comments this is primarily seen as a kids movie, even though it does contain a near-death scene. But this movie definitely fits my definition of a great story idea, that is very well presented - which is the reason it made my top 100. 1. This movie is gross. I don't know how you could eat popcorn or something during it.<br/><br/>2. It has some funny moments, but it's no laugh fest. (And it's David Hyde Pierce, not Osmosis Jones, who steals the show as the only really likable character.) It is not funny enough to be a real comedy, but not serious or dramatic enough to pull you in emotionally. It does neither adequately, and suffers for it.<br/><br/>3. The villain in it is kinda cool.<br/><br/>4. It is remarkable that the writers and directors of this film felt it was appropriate to mesh a lot of highly original and creative material (the "metropolis" of a human body, complete down to every nuance of its function and translated into animation) with a main character setup that is now so trite (the fast-talking, annoying inner city cop with a chip on his shoulder who plays by his own rules and doesn't follow procedure, paired unwillingly with the practical straight man or some other stereotypical partner who will get on his nerves.) Chris Rock as the mouthy, wise-cracking cop from the wrong side of the tracks.. Jeez. Enough already.<br/><br/>I had more than enough of him in Lethal Weapon 4. And Chris Tucker, too. (Same name, same voice, same routine, same kinds of movies. Talk about annoying, and I am not even certain that they are separate people.) The Lethal Weapon 4/Rush Hour/Rush Hour 2/Bad Company shtick has been done to death.<br/><br/>5. This movie had its moments, but overall it was a disappointment. Score: 5 out of 10. Remains stubbornly one-dimensional. The gags are so resoundingly and innocently pre-adolescent that it's really hard to see how the film managed a PG rating.
Ludvihea replied
366 weeks ago