Pile of snot

>> Osmosis Jones is gross but no fun

by MATTHEW HAYS

The premise for Osmosis Jones sounds good enough. Bill Murray is cast as a man who takes very bad care of himself--no exercise, lots of junk food, you get the idea. Playing to contemporary anxieties, the script has a new virus infecting his body. The film enters his body, where we see his immune system (fronted by the voice of Chris Rock as Jones) fighting the bad germs, as the film switches to animated form. It's Ralph Bakshi doing Fantastic Voyage.

Except that very little about Osmosis Jones really works. The Farrelly brothers helm the thing, and that would only seem to enhance the possibilities. These are the fraternal team, after all, who put cream in Cameron Diaz's hair, immortalizing that particular hair-do from There's Something About Mary. The Farrelly bros. inside the body, commenting on all that blood, bile, goo and spunk from the interior? How could this film screw up?

But there is something about the Farrellys' humour that relies, to a degree, on realism. We squirmed when Diaz put cum in her hair because it looked so damn gross. But when a cartoon character slips into a pile of snot, the entirely unrealistic medium undoes any comic power the gag may have had.

Rock and Laurence Fishburne give good voice, as one might expect, doing their best to breathe some life and colour into this otherwise uninspired fantasy. But try as they might, nothing can quite rescue the film from the germ of bad screenwriting infecting it.

As well, there is the sentimental subplot thrown in, in which Murray has a daughter who's upset by her father's potentially lethal unhealthiness. Usually, Farrelly vehicles supply enough laughs that we let the sappy stuff go. Not here.

Don't believe me? This is not simply the opinion of some filmed-out critic. I attended the avant-premiere of Osmosis Jones at Just for Laughs, and the house was packed with enthusiastic Farrelly-philes. The brothers were in attendance, as was Fishburne. But the crowd barely registered any major laughs. The high points came--and I'm not kidding here--when Murray threw up on Molly Shannon and then when his zit burst onto her face. You've had your warning.

Osmosis Jones opens Friday, Aug. 10