The film premiered on August 7, 2001, and was released theatrically three days later. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the world building, the animation, story, and voice performances, but criticized the inconsistent tone of 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 zookeeper widower at Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. He copes with the death of his wife Maggie by overeating and foregoing basic hygiene, much to his daughter Shane's embarrassment. Inside his body, called the "City of Frank" by its anthropomorphic inhabitants, white blood cell Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones is a quick-witted officer of the Frank Police Department whose attempts to catch germs end up causing trouble in Frank's body.
One day, desperate to be re-elected, the corrupt 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" ("The Red Death"), to enter his body. To placate his secretary Leah Estrogen, Phlegmming instructs Frank to take a cold pill, Special Agent Drixenol "Drix" Drixobenzometaphedramine, who disinfects the throat but unknowingly covers up evidence of Thrax's arrival. Ozzy is ordered to assist Drix's investigation while Thrax takes over a gang of sweat germs run by local crime bossScabies and attacks the dam in Frank's nose, nearly killing Drix before Ozzy saves him.
Ozzy and Drix get into an argument, but after Ozzy reveals Thrax and his gang as the cause of the mucus dam breakage, Drix sticks with Ozzy. Ozzy tells Drix the reason for his poor reputation: two years ago at a school science fair, Ozzy induced Frank to vomit a contaminatedoyster onto Shane's science and physical education teacher, Mrs. Boyd, causing Frank to be fired from his previous job at the local pea soup factory and banned from visiting Shane's school, and Ozzy was demoted to patrol duty in the mouth for his role in the public humiliation. Drix agrees with Ozzy that he did the right thing, and the duo pay a visit to Ozzy's flu vaccineinformant, Chill, who directs them to Thrax's hideout – a germ-ridden nightclub in a large zit on Frank's forehead. Ozzy goes undercover and infiltrates the gang, learning 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 a record 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. Its pus lands on Mrs. Boyd's lip during a conversation with Frank, foiling his chance to apologize. Furious, Phlegmming closes the investigation, dismisses Ozzy from the police force and orders Drix to leave the body after reminding him that his services are only temporary.
Having survived the zit's destruction, Thrax attacks the hypothalamus, stealing a crucial nucleotide before abducting Leah and preparing to flee via the mouth. His actions cause Frank to faint and develop a high fever, prompting his brother, Bob, to take him to the hospital, to Phlegmming's dismay. Having discovered Thrax's survival, Ozzy convinces Drix to stay and they intercept Thrax in the uvula and save Leah, but Thrax uses pollen to induce Frank to sneeze him out of the mouth. Drix launches Ozzy after him and they land on Shane's cornea. As they fight, falling onto one of Shane's false eyelashes, Ozzy tricks Thrax into trapping his hand in the lash and escapes as the lash falls into a beaker of alcohol, dissolving Thrax.
As Frank's temperature surpasses 108 °F (42 °C), he goes into cardiac arrest. Riding one of Shane's tears back to Frank's body as she mourns him, Ozzy returns with the stolen nucleotide, reviving Frank just in time. As Ozzy is hailed a hero and welcomed back into the police force, Drix is allowed to stay as his new partner and Ozzy enters a relationship with Leah. Having narrowly cheated death, Frank commits to a healthier lifestyle, leading Phlegmming to lose the election in a landslide to his opponent, Tom Colonic. Reduced to janitorial duty in the bowels, Phlegmming foolishly ignores a notice not to push a button that triggers Frank's flatulence, ejecting himself from the body.
Osmosis Jones went through development hell during production. The animated sequences, directed by Tom Sito and Piet Kroon, went into production as planned even being completed ahead of schedule, 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".[citation needed]
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.[1] The film was a box office bomb, unable to recover its $70 million production budget.[3]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, Osmosis Jones has an approval rating of 56% based on 111 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] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted 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 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."[9]
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".[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.[12] 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."[13] 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".[14]
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.
