Osmosis Jones

Theatrical release poster

***Osmosis Jones*** is a 2001 American live-action/animated action comedy film written by Marc Hyman. Combining live-action sequences directed by the Farrelly brothers and animation directed by Piet Kroon and Tom Sito, the film stars the voices of Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce, Brandy Norwood, and William Shatner alongside Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott, and Bill Murray in live-action roles. It follows the title character, an anthropomorphic white blood cell, as he teams up with a cold pill to protect his unhealthy human host from a deadly virus.

The film premiered on August 7, 2001, and was released theatrically three days later. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the animation, story, and voice performances, but criticized the live-action portions and overuse of gross-out humor. The film was also a commercial failure, grossing $14 million worldwide against a $70 million budget. Despite the poor financial response, the film was followed by the animated television series *Ozzy & Drix*, which aired on Kids' WB from 2002 to 2004.

## Plot

Frank DeTorre is an unhealthy and lazy zookeeper at the Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. Miserable by the death of his wife Maggie, he copes by overeating and foregoing basic hygiene, much to his daughter Shane's embarrassment. Inside his body, which is called the "City of Frank" by its anthropomorphic inhabitants, white blood cell Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones is a maverick officer of the Frank Police Department, the city's center for responses against bodily threats. After Ozzy - against orders - induced Frank to vomit a contaminated oyster onto Shane's teacher Mrs. Boyd, Frank lost his previous job at a pea soup factory and was banned from visiting Shane's school, and Ozzy was demoted to patrol duty in the mouth.

Some time afterward, facing a serious challenge to his re-election prospects, Mayor Phlegmming doubles down on his junk food policies, ignoring their effect on Frank's health. This induces Frank to eat a boiled egg that fell into a chimpanzee's habitat, allowing Thrax, a virus known as *La Muerte Roja*, to enter his body; to alleviate the safety concerns of his secretary Leah Estrogen, Phlegmming then instructs Frank to take a cold pill through brain signals. The pill, Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff, proceeds to disinfect the throat, covering up evidence of Thrax's arrival. Ozzy is told to assist Drix in his investigation, much to his chagrin. Thrax assumes leadership of a gang of sweat germs and launches an attack on the mucus dam in Frank's nose, nearly killing Drix before Ozzy rescues him.

The duo pay a visit to Chill, a cell from a flu vaccine and one of Ozzy's informants. Chill directs them to Thrax's hideout - a germ-ridden nightclub in a large zit on Frank's forehead. Ozzy goes undercover and infiltrates Thrax's gang, where he learns that Thrax, wanting to be known as the most dangerous virus in medical history, intends to masquerade as a common cold and use his knowledge of DNA to kill Frank within forty-eight hours. When Ozzy is discovered, Drix comes to his aid, causing a brawl which culminates in the zit being popped by a grenade. The pus lands on Mrs. Boyd's lip during a conversation between her and Frank, foiling Frank's one chance to apologize to her. In response, Phlegmming furiously closes the investigation, has Ozzy fired from the force and reminds Drix that pills are only to remain in the body temporarily before ordering him to leave.

Unbeknownst to the duo, Thrax has survived the zit's destruction. After killing his remaining henchmen, he proceeds to launch a lone assault on the hypothalamus, where he steals a crucial nucleotide. He then abducts Leah and flees to the mouth to escape. His actions disable the body's ability to regulate temperature, causing Frank to develop a severe fever. As Frank is taken to the hospital, Ozzy, having discovered Thrax's survival, reunites with Drix and convinces him not to leave. The two catch up to Thrax in the uvula and rescue Leah. Thrax uses pollen to induce Frank to sneeze, riding the 'wind' out of the mouth. Drix then shoots Ozzy out of the mouth after Thrax, and they land on Shane's cornea. As they fight, they fall onto one of Shane's false eyelashes, dislodging it. Ozzy tricks Thrax into getting his hand embedded in the lash, and escapes just as the lash falls into a beaker of rubbing alcohol, where Thrax dissolves.

As Frank's temperature surpasses 108 degrees, he goes into cardiac arrest. Riding on one of Shane's tears as she mourns her father, Ozzy returns to Frank's body with the stolen nucleotide, reviving him just in time. Ozzy is welcomed back into the police force and enters a relationship with Leah, while Drix is allowed to stay in the body as Ozzy's new partner. Having narrowly cheated death, Frank commits himself to living a healthier lifestyle, which results in Phlegmming losing the election to his opponent, Tom Colonic, in a landslide. Phlegmming is reduced to janitorial duty in the bowels, where he accidentally triggers Frank's flatulence, ejecting himself from the body.

## Cast

*Main article: List of Osmosis Jones and Ozzy & Drix characters*
### Voices

* Chris Rock as Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones, a quick-witted white blood cell with an impulsive personality
* Laurence Fishburne as Thrax, an extremely deadly pathogenic agent
* David Hyde Pierce as Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff, a by-the-book cold pill who becomes Ozzy's partner
* Brandy Norwood as Leah Estrogen, Mayor Phlegmming's secretary and Ozzy's love interest
* William Shatner as Mayor Phlegmming, the arrogant and incompetent mayor of the City of Frank
* Ron Howard as Tom Colonic, Phlegmming's rival for the mayoralty of the City of Frank

Kid Rock and Twisted Brown Trucker members Kenny Olson, Jason Krause, Joe C., Stefanie Eulinberg, Jimmie "Bones" Trombly, and Uncle Kracker provide the voices of the fictional band "Kidney Rock". Joel Silver makes an uncredited appearance as the police chief. Additional voices are provided by Jonathan Adams, Carlos Alazraqui, Eddie Barth, Rodger Bumpass, Paul Christie, Antonio Fargas, Eddie Frierson, Donald Fullilove, Richard Steven Horvitz, Rif Hutton, Anne Lockhart, Sherry Lynn, "Stuttering" John Melendez, Paul Pape, Chris Phillips, Al Rodrigo, Herschel Sparber, Doug Stone, Steve Susskind, and Robert Wisdom.

### Live-action

* Bill Murray as Frank DeTorre, Shane's widowed father and Bob's brother
* Molly Shannon as Mrs. Boyd, Shane's science and P.E. teacher
* Chris Elliott as Bob DeTorre, Frank's brother and Shane's uncle
* Elena Franklin as Shane DeTorre, Frank's 10-year-old daughter and Bob's niece

## 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 would not permit it.

Principal Photography on the live-action scenes took place from April 2 to June 19, 2000 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

*Osmosis Jones* was originally rated PG-13 by the MPAA 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 on appeal for "bodily humor".

## Release

### Marketing

The first trailer for *Osmosis Jones* was released 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*.

### Home media

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

## Reception

### Box office

*Osmosis Jones* had its world premiere screening on August 7, 2001, at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre before being widely released on August 10, 2001, in 2,305 theaters worldwide. Upon its original release, the film was a financial stump and was the penultimate project produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation (preceded by *The Iron Giant* and followed by *Looney Tunes: Back in Action*, which both also failed at the box office upon their original releases). The film 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. The film was a box office bomb, unable to recover its $70 million production budget.

### Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, *Osmosis Jones* has an approval rating of 55% based on 110 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." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted 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 out of 4 and wrote: "Likely to entertain kids, who seem to like jokes about anatomical plumbing. For adults, there is the exuberance of the animation and the energy of the whole movie, which is just plain clever."

The use of gross-out humor in the film's live-action sequences, 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." 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".

The film received numerous Annie Award nominations including Best Animated Feature (losing to *Shrek*).

## Soundtrack

*Main article: Osmosis Jones (soundtrack)*
A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music 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 number 88 on the *Billboard* Hot 100 singles chart.

## See also

* *Once Upon a Time... Life*, an animated series with similar anthropomorphic representations of cells and germs.
* *Ozzy & Drix*, an animated series that serves as a continuation of the film.
* *Cells at Work!*, a Japanese manga/anime series with a similar premise.
* *Inner Workings*, a Disney short film that is set in the human body.
* *Inside Out*, a Pixar computer-animated film that is set inside the human brain.