rank (Murray), an overweight middle-aged loser, cleans up elephant crap at the local zoo, but he's still a hero to his young daughter, Shane (Franklin). She wants him to take better care of himself, but Frank downplays her worries—even though Shane's mom died prematurely because of their poor eating habits.
How poor? When Frank's hard-boiled egg gets snatched by a chimp—who sticks it in his mouth—Frank wrestles to get it back. The egg falls on the ground—but Frank cites the "10-second" rule. If something's on the ground for less than 10 seconds, it's still clean. Frank pops the egg in his mouth.
Deep inside Frank's body, the remains of the masticated egg are a virtual toxic waste dump that the City of Frank's police force—his animated immune system—must scramble to clean up. They are unprepared for what they encounter—Thrax (Fishburne), a virulent virus who has hitched a ride on the egg and has designs on the entire city.
Street-smart white blood cell Osmosis Jones (Rock), meanwhile, is joining the fight against the contagion in the City of Frank. But the city's mayor (Shatner) tells his comely assistant, Leah (Norwood), that's he's unconcerned about warnings that Frank's health is in danger. Worried only about re-election by Frank's 989,684,499,879,964,090,233,019,999,639,090,883 citizens, the mayor would rather take everyone to the Buffalo Wing Festival in upstate New York: 99 kinds of wings, 128 dipping sauces.
A raging inflammation caused by the crash of a saliva boat in Frank's throat requires the services of Drix (Pierce), a no-nonsense cold capsule. The mayor pairs the disgraced Jones with Drix, despite Jones' protests. But at the scene of the crash, Jones finds evidence that the disease may be the work of someone more sinister than the usual cold germ—someone who has so far eluded detection.
In the real world, Shane wants to persuade her increasingly feverish father to join her on the school hike. But inside, Thrax is spreading his influence while Jones and Drix try to overcome their differences to solve the mystery. And time's running out.
Intestinal fortitude required
Osmosis Jones combines live action and animation in service of an intriguing metaphor on the part of first-time writer Hyman: the human body as urban megalopolis. In doing so, it combines elements of SF films like 1966's Fantastic Voyage and 1987's Innerspace with tropes from cop buddy movies from 48 Hrs. to Rush Hour 2, all to comic effect.
But the movie is an unfortunate mutation of conflicting styles. The live-action sequences feature the sledgehammer gross-out humor of the Farrelly brothers (There's Something About Mary).
By contrast, the animated sequences—from animation directors Kroon (The Iron Giant) and Sito (Antz)—are full of visual wit and elegant retro-futuristic design, all in a jazzy palette of purples and blues. The viewer is pleasantly surprised by the visualization of body parts as curiously appropriate cityscapes—the stomach as airport, the lymph nodes as police precinct, the liver as den of iniquity.
There are lots of anatomical puns—a burgeoning housing project in the subconscious is called the "Inferiority Complex." As might be expected, the script also relies heavily on bodily-function humor. Sometimes it works—a mayoral candidate, Tom Colonic, campaigns for the "smell of change"—and sometimes it's just disgusting. The Farrelly brothers—not exactly contenders for Merchant and Ivory status—apparently believe that the bigger the zit, the bigger the laugh.
The live actors Murray and Elliott are so repellent the viewer can practically smell them, and the live-action story is so inconsequential and unfunny that one grows impatient for the return of the animation.
It's ironic that the movie is most lively during the animated sequences. It's great fun to hear the voice of Pierce, stereotyped as TV's wimpy Niles Crane, in the pumped-up body of the Drixinator. He and Rock, who improvises many of his lines, have great body chemistry. The reliable Fishburne is entertainingly malevolent as Thrax.
