August 10, 2001
Osmosis Jones is a 2001 American live-action/animated action comedy film written by Marc Hyman. Combining live-action sequences directed by the Farrelly brothers and animation directed by Piet Kroon and Tom Sito, the film stars the voices of Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce, Brandy Norwood, and William Shatner alongside Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott, and Bill Murray in live-action roles. It follows the title character, an anthropomorphic white blood cell, as he teams up with a cold pill to protect his unhealthy human host from a villainous virus.
Storyline
Frank DeTorre is an unkempt zookeeper at the Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. He copes with his wife Maggie's death by overeating and forgoing basic hygiene, much to his daughter Shane's concern. Inside his body, white blood cell Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones is an overzealous officer of the "Frank Police Department," the body's center for responses against bodily threats; Ozzy's attempts to catch germs often cause trouble in Frank's body and have given him a negative reputation.
Mayor Phlegmming, who is facing an election against Tom Colonic, doubles down on his junk food policies so he can go to a food festival in Buffalo, New York, ignoring the negative effects this has on Frank's health. This causes Frank to eat a boiled egg covered in chimpanzee saliva, allowing Thrax, a deadly virus known mainly as "The Red Death," to enter his body and inflame his throat. Phlegmming instructs Frank to take a cold pill. Ozzy, much to his displeasure, is assigned to assist the pill, Special Agent Drixenol "Drix" Drixobenzometaphedramine, in his investigation. Drix proceeds to disinfect the throat, but accidentally covers up evidence of Thrax's arrival. Thrax assumes leadership of a gang of sweat germs after murdering their leader and besieges Frank's mucus dam, nearly killing Ozzy and Drix as a runny nose is incited. After his attempts to warn Phlegmming are rebuffed, Ozzy tells Drix how he once caused Frank to vomit on Shane's teacher, Mrs. Boyd, at a school science fair after Frank ate a contaminated oyster which led to Frank's dismissal from his previous job and Mrs. Boyd filing a restraining order against him; Frank’s brother Bob had gotten him his job at the zoo and Ozzy was suspended for unnecessary force and then demoted to patrol duties in Frank's mouth.
Ozzy and Drix visit Chill, a flu vaccine and one of Ozzy's informants, who directs them to Thrax's hideout in a germ-ridden nightclub in a large zit on Frank's forehead. Ozzy goes undercover and infiltrates Thrax's gang, where he learns that Thrax intends to masquerade as a common cold and use his knowledge of DNA to kill Frank. 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 meeting between her and Frank; in response, Phlegmming closes the investigation, and despite their warnings, dismisses Ozzy from the police force and orders Drix to leave Frank’s body. Back in the real world, Frank prepares to go to Buffalo, much to Shane's disapproval.
Unbeknownst to the duo, Thrax had survived the zit's destruction and launches a lone assault on the hypothalamus where he steals a crucial nucleotide and then abducts Phlegmming's secretary, Leah Estrogen, before fleeing to the mouth to escape. Thrax's actions disable the body's ability to regulate temperature and Frank develops a dangerous fever. As Frank is hospitalized, Ozzy, having discovered Thrax's survival, convinces Drix not to leave and the duo catch up to Thrax and rescue Leah. Thrax induces Frank to sneeze him out of the mouth using pollen. Drix shoots Ozzy after him and he and Thrax both land on Shane's cornea. As the two battle, they end up on one of Shane's false eyelashes. Ozzy tricks Thrax into getting his hand embedded in the lash and escapes just as it falls into a beaker of rubbing alcohol, killing Thrax.
As Frank's temperature surpasses 108 °F (42 °C), he goes into cardiac arrest, due to his body being forced into performing a cytokine storm to rid it of Thrax's viral infection. Riding in one of Shane's tears as she mourns Frank, Ozzy falls back into Frank's mouth with the stolen nucleotide, reviving him just in time. Ozzy is welcomed back into the police force as he begins a relationship with Leah, while Drix stays as Ozzy's new partner and Frank commits himself to living a healthier lifestyle. A now disgraced Phlegmming becomes a janitor in the bowels and is ejected from Frank’s body by flatulence after he ignores a notice not to trigger it.