My Review of Osmosis Jones · 11:21pm Dec 1st, 2022
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, everyone. This is Mr. J back with another movie review for tonight. This evening, I will be reviewing Warner Bros' Osmosis Jones from 2001. I am honestly chuckling at myself for this because I have been sick during the last two days; thankfully, I am almost fully recovered aside from a sniffy nose and a few coughs. So it seems like my white blood cells have been working hard to battle either the common cold or the flu I've been exposed to. I have this movie to thank for giving us a wild yet interesting idea of how these cells function in our bodies. But does this movie still hold up? Is it worth watching or remembering? Well, let's take a look and see, shall we?
This movie is about a gluttonous human named Frank who has little regard for health and hygiene. Eating an egg that has monkey saliva and shit right off the ground, he eats it with zero hesitation. Now a deadly virus surges through his body in an attempt to kill him within 48 hours in record time. It is up to a determined white blood cell officer and a fussy cold-cure pill to stop him before Frank is taken down.
As much as I enjoyed the overall premise and the storyline, the movie as a whole does not hold up very well--not just because it flopped at the box office but also because of the inconsistency of its own story. The main problem with this film is that they put little effort into making the live-action segments at least bearable to watch. They were honestly the worst parts of the whole movie. Did they seriously have to make them so damn cringe-worthy? I couldn't understand the thought process of having Bill Murray perform every disgusting act just to make the viewers cringe in disgust.
Don't get me started with the acting. I'm sorry, but Bill Murray's acting was horrible and so were all the other human characters. The only human that was actually decent was the girl. At least she tried to act despite the dumb script she was given.
However, the animation segments were the saving graces of this film. The voice acting was awesome, the animation itself is great, and the dialogue is memorable, in my humble opinion. Chris Rock did pretty well as Osmosis Jones, and David Hyde Pierce was also great as Drix. Who would have thought that a random white blood cell would be this hilarious and likable as a character? He's definitely more likable than Will Smith's Oscar from Shark Tale. Oops! Was that a slap on the face for you?
But this sexy virus was the best part of the film:
Thrax was charming, charismatic, intimidating, intelligent, handsome, and overall attractive. This is how bad guys should be: handsomely charming evil-doers with a swarm of fangirls simping for them! Laurence Fishburne was the perfect guy to voice him. It's such a shame we can't have pure evil villains like him anymore since writers, show creators, and filmmakers are obsessed with tragic, redeemable villains or twist villains nowadays. But yeah, he has some of the best lines in this film such as "Careful, I'm contagious." and "Medical books aren't written about losers!"
The lesson here is pretty obvious: wash your hands, maintain a balanced, healthy diet, and don't eat anything from the ground. We don't want to be taken down by a charming disease who has a superior sense of fashion, now don't we?
Overall, this is a movie I gladly consider a guilty pleasure; just enjoy it for the animation parts, not the live-action ones. For that reason, I will rate it a solid 6/10! If you want to learn more about health, how the human body works, and how 100 trillion cells function in daily life, go ahead and watch this film.
Peace! *sneeze* Excuse me.
Funny enough, there's like...a whole franchise of manga with a couple of anime known as Cells at Work; similar idea of "humanizing" your cells and envisioning the human body as a city.
When it came to the live-action segments, I personally didn't have too much of a problem with them. If they too were animated, they likely wouldn't have given enough realism to support the fictional depiction of the inside of Frank's body. I do agree that they weren't as fun or enjoyable as the animated segments, though, and that the performers didn't seem to be putting as much effort into their roles compared to the voice actors.
One thing I couldn't help but wonder just now is this:
What would've happened if the live-action segments were computer-animated instead? While the scenes taking place in Frank's body and the characters were still hand-drawn animated?
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The problem isn't that they were live-action. The problem is that they lacked effort into making them entertaining like the animation scenes. They wanted to do some live-action stuff? Fine. Just make it fun, not unbearable.
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Of course. That’s why I agree that they weren’t as great as the animated scenes.
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It’s too bad that Warner Bros. & the Farrelly Brothers aren’t planning on releasing a director’s cut of the live-action scenes. I can only wonder whether the two directors made versions of them that they actually liked or wanted to incorporate.
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Why would they? It’s a flop, and it would ultimately be pointless.
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Right.
I know this is a little late to say, but I agree with you about Thrax. He’s truly one of the best non-Disney antagonists I’ve ever seen.