Osmosis Jones (2001)

Osmosis Jones (2001)

6/10

Starring

Chris Rock

Laurence Fishburne

David Hyde Pierce

Brandy Norwood

William Shatner

Bill Murray

Directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly | Animation: Tom Sito and Piet Kroon

Way back in 2001, the voice of Chris Rock came screaming at us right from inside Bill Murray as the white blood cell Osmosis Jones.

This animation and live-action mix wasn’t a big hit back then, nor was it a crowd-puller at the box office, as it didn’t make enough money to cover its budget. This is the only version of the movie, and for me, it’s good enough family fun.

Seeing it again nineteen years later, I still feel it’s a nice movie that makes you think about your health, while entertaining you along the way.

With wonderful voice acting paired with Bill Murray’s performance as the jerk Frank, the movie takes place half the time inside Frank and the other half outside him. The live-action happens outside, with Bill Murray, and the animation shows us what’s going on inside, with great voice casting. The animation here is average, but it does the job.

We get to see how the things Frank does on the outside affect him on the inside, and how what’s happening inside him affects the outside. The focus of the movie is on Frank’s white blood cell, Osmosis Jones, and his partner, a flu drug named Drix.

Frank is not a healthy individual—he eats whatever he likes, his house is a mess, and he’s like a toddler who puts anything into his mouth without thinking about where it came from. Frank eats an egg that no one in their right mind would eat and, in doing so, ingests a rogue virus named Thrax.

Thrax has been killing people all around, trying to make a name for himself by getting better at killing his mark in fewer days than the previous one. His goal is to make the body think it has one problem, while the body focuses on curing those symptoms, allowing him to carry out his work. Osmosis spots Thrax and starts investigating the situation, but he’s a rogue white blood cell—very impulsive, acting first and thinking later.

When he spots Thrax, he goes after him, but he’s alone in this battle, as his impulsive actions make it hard to get everyone on board with his mission.

I seem to enjoy this movie every time I see it. I understand that it wasn’t meant to be one of those box-office blowouts, but I guess this is what Disney watched to figure out what they should not do to make sure Pixar’s Inside Out was a box-office hit.