Osmosis Jones (2001)

(On DVD, December 2001) A failed fusion between two very different films. The first one is a relatively clever animated comedy take-off on the buddy-cop concept… in the human body. A young impulsive white cell cop is teamed up with a straight by-the-book cough medicine colleague and, well, we’ve seen the rest, except not as antibodies hunting for a dangerous virus. The fast pacing features plenty of sight-gags to keep up our interest even though it’s all familiar stuff. The second film of Osmosis Jones, however, is an awful gross-out live-action comedy that is not only audience-hostile, but also astonishingly dull. Bill Murray turns in what may very well be his worst performance ever and to put it simply, it doesn’t work. Whenever the live-action segments pop up, we just wish to go back inside Frank’s body. Unfortunately, Osmosis Jones sinks under the weight of its problems, drowning its good animated segments. Too bad. The DVD spends way too much time, money and attention on a poor movie, though it’s nice of them to show us as much Brandy Norwood as they can.