Osmosis Jones

Tom Sito, Piet Kroon and the Farrelly brothers directed a hybrid comedy in 2001 known as Osmosis Jones. Starring Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce, Brandy Norwood, William Shatner, Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott, and Bill Murray, the film was a massive box office bomb. Of the $70 million it cost, the film only grossed $13.5. It did, however, get a television show called Ozzy & Drix from 2002 until 2004.

Osmosis Jones (Rock) is a white blood cell inside the body of Frank (Murray). He’s paired up with Drix (Pierce), a cold pill to fight what they believe to be a common cold. Instead, they find Thrax (Fishburne), a virus intent on killing Frank.

This movie is all over the place. It’s got a fun story, but it’s just so full of mostly bad puns and lame jokes centering on the weirdness of the human body that it really takes you out of the story. Some jokes are actually pretty funny (like finding a good lawyer in the hemorrhoids), a couple are clever (like a cell dividing by himself) but the rest are just bad and painful.

The music also dates this movie pretty hard, since its mainly early late 90s, early 2000s rap and hip hop. It makes sense for the movie, but they really could have chosen other songs or maybe earlier selections that would have withstood being forgotten by the sands of time.

As for the live action parts, Bill Murray is hilarious as always and he actually does well in  regards to the secondary plot. Chris Elliot as his brother is also pretty good. But despite it being acted so well, the secondary plot feels to much like a sledgehammer to the face about the merits of living well and eating right.

It’s not a terrible movie, but it’s not great either.  

Doesn't pass the Edge of Satisfaction and becomes #4 for Comedy. 

Back to the Future II

Four years after the success of Back to the Future, Zemeckis decided to make two more. The first sequel, Back to the Future Part II picks up exactly where the first film left off. With almost everyone reprising their roles, plus Flea as Needles, the film grossed over $300 million and was the third-highest grossing film of 1989.

Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) takes Marty (Michael J. Fox) and Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) to 2015 to save his son from trouble. Successful, they find the elderly Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) stole the DeLorean and made his younger self rich. Now with 1985 made into a dystopia, Marty has to return to 1955 to set right what once went wrong.

Yes, this film has launched a few memes that have gotten very old, very fast. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. In fact, it’s almost as good as the first.

The future portion of the film looks very good and it’s quite noticeable that a lot of effort went into making it look like it actually is the future. And the clock tower still not being fixed is an amusing addition. The DeLorean also has a couple great additions, like using trash as fuel and it being able to fly. Once again, just how these work isn’t explained, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s future tech!

The alternate 1985 is also great. Everyone’s had the dream of being able to control the country or world and this shows what would happen if someone so self-absorbed and narcissistic as Biff did so. It also displays the relationship between the abuser and the abused quite well in how Biff controls Lorraine. And since Biff controls everything, she can’t go anywhere anyway.

In going back to 1955, Marty has to stay out of sight from his past self, currently working on the events of the first movie. However, the movie never strains itself in how he continues to avoid himself.

There is a slight continuity error though. In the first film, Doc wants to see who wins the next few World Series and make a bit of money. But in this one, he explicitly condemns it and says he didn’t invent the time machine to win at gambling. He might have had development between films but everything else about him is the same.

Not better than the first, but still passes the Edge of Satisfaction.

#2