Osmosis Jones

***Osmosis Jones*** is a 2001 American live-action/animated gross out action comedy film with animated scenes directed by Tom Sito and Piet Kroon and live action scenes directed by the Farrelly brothers.[3] The film centers on Frank Detorre, a slovenly zookeeper; the live-action scenes are set outside Frank's body, while the animated scenes are set inside his body, which is portrayed as a city inhabited by anthropomorphic blood cells and microorganisms. White blood cell cop Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones and cold pill Drix must prevent deadly virus Thrax from killing Frank within forty-eight hours.

## Plot

Frank Detorre (Bill Murray) is an unkempt, slovenly, widowed zookeeper at the Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. Depressed by the loss of his wife Maggie years earlier, he copes by eating unhealthily and ignores basic hygiene, to the chagrin of his young daughter Shane (Elena Franklin). During a lunch break, Frank eats a boiled egg he dropped onto the ground after a chimpanzee had stolen it and put it in its mouth despite his daughter's protests.

Inside Frank's body, Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones (Chris Rock), a rebellious and disgraced white blood cell patrolman of the Frank PD, recklessly chases germs from the egg, but fails to catch them and instead causes Frank to have a bad leg cramp. Meanwhile, facing a serious 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 Norwood). Back in the mouth, Thrax (Laurence Fishburne), a deadly red virus, emerges from the leftover egg and sadistically causes inflammation in the throat.

Unwilling to admit responsibility for the recent symptoms, Phlegmming instructs Frank to take a cold pill through brain signals. The suppressant, Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff (David Hyde Pierce), is partnered with Ozzy to investigate the recent sore throat. While Drix cools off the inflammation, Ozzy gets a short eyewitness testimony from a terrified bacterium who saw Thrax arrive.

Thrax assumes leadership of a gang of sweat germs and launches an attack on the mucus dam in Frank's nose, causing a runny nose, nearly expelling Ozzy and Drix before Frank inhales them back into the sinuses. As they continue their investigation, Drix hears Phlegmming remind Ozzy of having the worst record in Frank PD, and he doesn't want another major incident while Frank is currently planning a trip to a chicken wing festival in Buffalo, New York.

Eventually, Ozzy reveals to Drix that two years prior, during a science fair at Shane's school, he caused Frank to publicly vomit on Shane's science and P.E. teacher, Mrs. Boyd (Molly Shannon), after seeing a deadly virus on an oyster Frank ate earlier after observing another student's oyster display. The story ran in the local newspaper the next day, humiliating both of them and their families and causing Frank to get fired from his job at the town's pea soup factory. Mrs. Boyd also took out a 200-yard restraining order against Frank. His brother, Shane's uncle Bob (Chris Elliott), later helped him get a job at the zoo. Ozzy, in turn, was then suspended from his job working in the stomach and kidneys and then demoted to patrol duty in the mouth for unnecessary force as no one else saw the virus he saw. He confesses his ongoing guilt and doubt to Drix, who assures Ozzy that he was justified in his actions.

Ozzy and Drix pick up a lead from a vaccine informant, and go undercover at a nightclub located within a large zit on Frank's forehead, intending to infiltrate Thrax's gang. Once there, the two discover Thrax's plan to steal a vital chromosome from the hypothalamus, driving up Frank's body temperature to fatal levels. Thrax intends to kill Frank in a record-breaking 48 hours since body entry. Soon, Ozzy's cover is blown but is saved by Drix, who destroys the club with a grenade, apparently killing all of them. At the same time, Frank meets with Mrs. Boyd to try and get her to temporarily lift her restraining order so he can attend a school father-daughter camping trip with Shane, but Ozzy's explosion bursts the zit and causes it to land on her lip, grossing her out, and she screams at him to leave. Back at the station, a furious Phlegmming closes the investigation, fires Ozzy, and orders Drix to leave the city to cover up the situation.

Having survived the assault, Thrax kills his last surviving gang members when they suggest to lay low. He proceeds to discreetly break into the hypothalamus gland and steals a DNA bead from a chromosome. As a result, Frank's body temperature begins to rise. Back in the mayor's office, Leah tries to get Phlegmming to address the alarm Thrax had triggered, but Phlegmming ignores her. She rushes off to investigate it herself, but gets kidnapped by Thrax. Ozzy, after inadvertently discovering that Thrax is still alive, stops Drix from leaving and persuades him to come back and help him finish the case. Thrax flees to the uvula to escape. As Frank and Bob drive to Buffalo, the effects of Thrax's assault begin to set in, and Frank loses consciousness at the wheel, forcing Bob to call the trip off and call for an ambulance, much to Phlegmming's utter dismay. Shane's school bus, en route to their camping trip, passes by the scene and Shane gets off to follow her dad to the hospital.

As Frank is rushed to the hospital in a fever-induced coma, Ozzy and Drix give chase and save Leah, but Thrax escapes out of the mouth by using pollen, causing Frank to sneeze and expel Thrax from his body. Drix shoots Ozzy out of his arm cannon in pursuit of Thrax to the surface of Shane's right eye and her false eyelash. Thrax bests Ozzy in hand-to-hand combat, but gets his claw stuck in the eyelash. Ozzy's pliable body allows him to escape as the false eyelash slides off and lands in a glass of rubbing alcohol, where Thrax screams in pain and dissolves to death.

As Frank's temperature reaches 108 °F (42 °C), his heartbeat flatlines as he suffers hyperpyrexia. Shane begins crying as she regrets her harsh words towards her father in an argument they had over her mother's death, believing that had caused him to lose the will to live. Riding on one of Shane's tears, Ozzy reenters Frank's body with Thrax's necklace of DNA beads, and returns the one stolen from Frank to the hypothalamus, reviving Frank just in time.

Having narrowly cheated death, Frank commits himself to living a much healthier lifestyle with the help of Shane. Ozzy begins a relationship with Leah and is re-instated to the force as a public hero with Drix as his new partner. Phlegmming loses his bid for reelection and is reduced to working as a custodian in the bowels, where he accidentally ejects himself from the body by pushing a button that triggers Frank's flatulence.

## Cast

### Animation voice cast

* Chris Rock as Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones, an overzealous blue and white blood cell with little respect for authority
* Laurence Fishburne as Thrax, a tall, extremely virulent, pathogenic agent
* David Hyde Pierce as Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff, a stoic cold pill who becomes Ozzy's best friend.
* Brandy Norwood as Leah Estrogen, Mayor Phlegmming's secretary and Ozzy's love interest
* William Shatner as Mayor Phlegmming, the self-centered mayor of the "City of Frank"
* Ron Howard as Tom Colonic, Phlegmming's rival for the mayoralty of the City of Frank
* Joel Silver (uncredited) as the police chief, Ozzy's boss
* Steve Susskind as Mob Germ Boss
* Carlos Alazraqui as Spanish germ
* Antonio Fargas as Chill
* Rodger Bumpass as Announcer for Nerve News Network and Joe Cramp
* Paul Christie as Dan Matter and Gern
* Richard Steven Horvitz as Male Red Blood Cell
* Kid Rock as Kidney Rock
* Joe C. as Kidney Rock
* James Arnold Taylor as Coffee Holding White Blood Cell
* U Aung Ko as Police Officers
* "Stuttering" John Melendez as Arty, a janitor of the City Of Frank who was kidnapped by Thrax
* Sherry Lynn as Trudy, a news reporter for Nerve News Network who works with Dan Matter
* Liz Callaway as Female Cell
* Chris Phillips as Doug, A Firefighter who is a close friend of Ozzy
* Donald Fullilove as Doughnut
* Rif Hutton as one of Thrax's minions
* Mickie McGowan as a Librarian
* Eddie Frierson as a Police Officer of Frank Police Department

### Live-action cast

* Bill Murray as Frank Detorre; The animated part of the film takes place inside his body, which is referred to by the cells as "the City of Frank"
* Elena Franklin as Shane Detorre, Frank's 10-year-old daughter
* Molly Shannon as Mrs. Boyd, Shane's science and P.E. teacher
* Chris Elliott as Bob Detorre, Frank's brother and Shane's uncle

## 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 of Ozzy, 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. However, Warner Bros. edited the film to make it family-friendly, and in 2001 when it was released the film was re-rated PG for "bodily humor".[*citation needed*]

Animal action was supervised by the American Humane Association.

## Release

The film had its world premiere on August 7, 2001 and then on August 10, 2001.

### Marketing

The first trailer for *Osmosis Jones* was released right in front of *Pokemon 3: The Movie* on April 6, 2001 and contains a classical masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick's film *2001: A Space Odyssey* whose version sounds different than the version used in the film as done by Zdenek of Slovak by Naxos and hasn't been heard on any of the ads that come right after the trailer which never had the chance to appear on U.S. television or a video or DVD released by Warner Home Video and is not PAL-Tweaked.

### Box office

*Osmosis Jones* had its world premiere screening on August 7, 2001 at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California. Shortly after that, the film widely opened on August 10, 2001 in 2,305 theaters worldwide. Upon its original release, the film was a financial stump, 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. The film soon grossed $13,596,911.[1] The film was a box office bomb, unable to recover its $70 million production budget.

### Home media

*Osmosis Jones* was released on VHS and DVD on November 13, 2001.

### 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."[4] 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".[5]Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[6]

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*".[7] *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."[8] Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4.[9]

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".[10] Maitland McDonagh of *TV Guide* praised the film's animation and its glimpse of intelligence although did criticize the humor as being "so distasteful".[11] 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." 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 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 as well as "Torian and Andrew's Babblin'" was released on August 7, 2001 by Atlantic Records. The soundtrack failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but Trick Daddy's single "Take It to da House" managed to make it to 88 on the *Billboard* Hot 100 singles chart.