OSMOSIS JONES —** — Bill Murray, Molly Shannon, and featuring the voices of Chris Rock, David Hyde-Pierce, Lawrence Fishburne, Brandy Norwood, William Shatner and others; rated PG (animated violence, profanity, vulgarity); see the "On the Screen" column on Page W2 for complete listing of local theaters.
If you have seen "Fantastic Voyage," the 1966 sci-fi thriller about a microscopic trip through the human body, and if it prompted you to wonder, "But what of the intricacies of vomit, runny noses, pimples and other disgusting bodily fluids and functions?" — then your ship has come in with "Osmosis Jones."
The Farrelly brothers, who brought us "Dumb & Dumber," "There's Something About Mary" and "Me, Myself and Irene," among others, keep up their gross-out antics with "Osmosis Jones," although they are tamed to a degree. Not much, but enough to make "Jones" a "family" film that's fun, but, unlike its title, fails to really dig past the surface.
The film is half live-action and half animation. The live-action story follows zoo worker Frank (Bill Murray), who has the hygiene and eating habits of a cockroach. Inside of Frank is the animated world of another "Frank," an internal city where the cells work to keep the outer Frank going.
In this microscopic metropolis is the white blood cell cop Osmosis Jones (voiced by Chris Rock), who is part of the crew trying to keep Frank germ-free.
When Frank eats a hard-boiled egg that has been manhandled by a monkey, he unwittingly ingests the virus Thrax (voiced with a menacing silkiness by Laurence Fishburne), which is bent on Frank's destruction. As Frank begins to feel under the weather, he takes a cold capsule, Drixenol (voiced by David Hyde Pierce), which ends up teaming up with Jones to fight Thrax before he does Frank in.
The most fun in "Osmosis Jones" is the tweaking of things from our world to fit into the world of Frank, the same way the "Flintstones" and "Jetsons" took '60s culture and plugged it into the Stone Age and the future, respectively.
Great gags abound, as when musical groups the Stones and Kidney Rock play at Frank's kidneys, or when we see a poster in the back of the office that says "The Million Membrane March," or the television personalities who gush over cute, new Panda bear animal crackers that recently arrived in the stomach. The film is chock full of these jokes, and audience members have to keep their eyes and ears sharp to pick them all out.
Unfortunately, there's not too much else to to recommend "Osmosis Jones." The storyline — "renegade cop with a good heart works with a by-the-book outsider cop" — follows every possible clichet of the genre.
Sadly, Rock and Hyde Pierce aren't given many opportunities to show off their already-proven comedic talents. The dialogue and storyline go right where we know they're going.
And Murray isn't given much to do beyond getting sick and being all-around disgusting. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine anyone else being even half as amusing as Murray is in this role.
"Osmosis Jones" is rated PG for animated violence, language and gross-out humor. Running time: 98 minutes.
E-mail: pthunell@desnews.com