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YMMV / Osmosis Jones

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Thrax's unnerved reaction to Frank's subconscious makes you wonder if some of those memories Thrax saw were of a Dark and Troubled Past that Frank took on his unhealthy habits to cope with.
  • Animation Age Ghetto: What inspired the film's overhaul from a gritty, profane PG-13 action comedy to a juvenile gross-out family flick and, ultimately, proved its failure.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise: For once, it was this and not a lack of advertisement on WB's part that caused the film to flop. The film couldn't blend the live-action gross-out comedy with the animated buddy cop movie as each portion only detracted from the other, confusing audiences who were put off by the jarring juxtaposition of the two ideas in trailers.
  • Awesome Music: From the tail end of the credits, the Diane Warren love ballad "Why Did You Have To Be" by Debelah Morgan.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • Whether you feel bad for her or not, it is truly satisfying to see Shane get off her school bus to follow the ambulance carrying her dad and disobeying her insufferable and unforgiving teacher Miss Boyd, who has spent the whole movie being a total bitch to Frank.
    • Thrax falling into the container of rubbing alcohol and being utterly obliterated is an extremely crowd-pleasing moment.
    • As he's the reason behind Frank's unhealthy habit, nearly caused his death, and being an utter Jerkass to Ozzy and Drix, it's incredibly delightful to watch Mayor Phlegmming be called out by Leah for caring more about being re-elected than about the lives of everyone, get impeached and demoted to working in the bowels, and get himself farted out of Frank.
  • Cliché Storm: Apart from the fact that it takes place in the animated premise of a human body, the movie plays up the Buddy Cop Show tropes to a tee without much variation.
  • Complete Monster: Thrax is a deadly virus who is obsessed with infamy and making his name known in the medical books. To this end, Thrax infiltrates human after human and slowly kills them through an agonizing fever—one of his victims a little girl who "didn't like to wash her hands"—which comes with the consequence of killing both the human and every living organism inside of them. Upon invading the body of Frank DeTorre, Thrax introduces himself by burning a cell unfortunate enough to cross him from the inside out whilst humming, and cuts clean through a local crime boss to cow his flunkies into serving him. Thrax sets about murdering whomever comes in his way and burns his own flunkies to death after they suggest incubating, ultimately nearly succeeding in dooming Frank and gloating to hero Osmosis Jones that he intends on breaking his record on Frank's young daughter Shane.
  • Cult Classic: Generally regarded as a dud with too many unfinished or poorly-realized ideas, it otherwise has a decent fanbase of nostalgic millennials who love it for what it is. The fact that it's one of the few theatrically released 2D-animated features from The Millennium Age of Animation certainly helps. The movie's creativity with the scenes inside Frank's body have definitely gotten a lot of admiration over the years that even detractors have said those parts mostly work well.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Even among the film's detractors, Leah Estrogen is seen as this for her honesty and caring attitude without being offensive.
    • Mrs. Boyd, for being the only relatable human, outside of possibly Shane.
  • Epileptic Trees: Due to the fact that he does not act like a normal virus, there are numerous fan theories on what Thrax is.
  • Evil Is Cool: Even the movie's detractors claim that Thrax was the best part of the movie. He's got a cool design and fashion sense, a terrifying presence, and is just so suave and Faux Affably Evil.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The movie building up Osmosis and Leah as a couple goes down the drain when you put the spin-off show into account where Osmosis and Drix are forced out of Frank and transferred to a different body.
    • The already intimidating Thrax becomes much more terrifying in the wake of another deadly cold-like virus.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ho Yay:
  • Hollywood Pudgy: There are lines in the script that seem to imply that Shane is overweight. It seems likely that was the original intent and they never changed the script, because the actress they wound up casting is a tiny thing.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Mrs. Boyd is a very cold and bitter teacher to the point where she'll scream her head off at her students if they aren't doing their work, and she slapped Frank with a restraining order for simply vomiting on her at the school science fair. But, considering that she and her children were also humiliated after the incident, to the point where they were endlessly teased for it and her daughter Shirley even had to transfer schools and was given the nickname "Hurley", she obviously took out a restraining order on Frank to prevent further humiliation to her and her family, and her becoming such a cold and bitter person was clearly the result of all that endless humiliation—and while she's helping drive the wedge between Frank and Shane, which Frank even protects her by not telling Shane she refuses to make peace with him, Mrs. Boyd still clearly cares about Shane and wants what's best for her (while also probably thinking Shane's life would improve since Frank is seen as a toxic influence).
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Frank is deeply unpopular among viewers due to being quite unlikable and lethargic, with the most notable example being his emotionless reminder to Shane on how her mother died. He's actually more disliked than Thrax, who is seen as an incredibly cool villain despite his utter depravity, and Mayor Phlegmming, who, unlike Frank, was actually meant to be hated by audiences.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: Most viewers only watch the film for the animated portions, whose exuberance, liveliness and interesting plot have all been praised by critics. The scenes that focus on Thrax are considered a highlight by themselves, given that he is far more sinister and cool than one would expect a villain from a children's movie to be.
  • Karmic Overkill: Frank vomiting on Mrs. Boyd after he made the unwise decision to eat oysters from a science experiment was definitely a grotesque thing to do. But getting slapped with a restraining order and fired from a job over something that was accidental is a bit unfair, to say the least.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Thrax. Fans tend to ship him with either Ozzy, a Self-Insert, or an Original Character. And many a Fanvid maker has made fan edit Crossover Ships of him with just about any 2D Non/Disney animated film character you can think of, the most popular choices being Odette and Eris.
  • Memetic Badass: Ozzy is seen as a hardcore cell after COVID-19 arrived. Helps that his later voice actor Phil LaMarr mentioned in a Cameo video that "Corona is gonna be a gonna".
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Thrax escaping the Subconscious Room is used to represent a Screw This, I'm Outta Here reaction.
    • "Osmosis Jones tried to warn us!" Explanation
    • "Why you hit so hard?" Explanation
    • You can't fuck Osmosis Jones. Explanation
  • Moral Event Horizon: Thrax crosses it by murdering two cells in his introduction with his touch.
  • Narm:
    • Uncle Bob's reaction to Frank getting hospitalized. His "crying" honestly sounds like hooting laughter.
    • Frank eating a Circus Peanut while trying to have a moment with his daughter about her mother passing away is such a pathetic sight that you can't help but laugh at it, which is also especially not helped by Bill Murray's apathetic performance in that scene. It's often seen as a low point for Bill Murray, who's otherwise a fantastic actor.
  • Narm Charm: As the City of Frank collapses, there is a weird parody of the band from Titanic (1997) as Frank's body dies, including a performance of "Nearer My God to Thee". Yet, it comes across as a strangely moving homage in a very heartwrenching scene.
  • Nausea Fuel: The movie takes place inside and around a severely unhealthy and unhygienic person, so it unsurprisingly contains a ton of gross moments. Enough to deserve its own page.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Ron Howard as Tom Colonic, thanks to his caring attitude as a politician.
  • Paranoia Fuel: There's a lot in this film. Firstly, your body is made up of trillions of fully sentient cells; talking, crying, and living their lives within you as you live about yours. Every time you cut yourself and blood drips out, that's a couple million people DYING! Also, related to the Fridge Horror, your Mayor (with approval from the City Council) has the ability to take over your brain and make you say and do things beyond your control.
  • Realism-Induced Horror: Any major outbreak is often going to result in a lot of fans taking Thrax seriously as a threat.
  • The Scrappy: Frank is seen as such for being such a despicably unlikable slob. Especially with how he casually disregards his own health, his apparent apathy towards Shane's frustration, and Bill Murray's emotionless performance. It doesn't help that the beginning of Ozzy & Drix shows him going back to his old self-destructive habits.
  • Signature Scene: Frank eating the egg as it switches to the first animated portion of the movie taking place in Frank's mouth, as it was one of the scenes most prominently showcased in promotional material for the movie. This is in addition to how memorably disgusting the scene is, said egg having been previously in a chimpanzee's mouth and then on the ground of the chimp cage.
  • Squick:
    • Frank picks up a hard-boiled egg and eats it. What makes this Squick? The egg has been on the ground in a filthy chimpanzee cage, and before that it was in the chimp's mouth.
    • A horror film playing in Frank's movie theater (i.e. a nightmare from his subconscious) involves his daughter marrying his brother.
    • One of the songs in the soundtrack, titled "Cool, Daddy Cool" by Kid Rock and Joe C, has lyrics openly talking about underaged girls.
      Young ladies, young ladies. I like them underaged, see. Some say that's statutory, but I say it's mandatory.
  • Trailer Joke Decay: Several jokes found in the film are first shown in the two trailers, making them less funny.
  • Vindicated by History: Even though it got lukewarm reviews when it came out, it gained a loyal following among the nostalgia crowd for the strong animated scenes. It has also gotten fairly popular among those in medical professions for its surprisingly accurate depiction of the human body.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Originally, it wasn't, but it was neutered just enough to fit a PG rating. This apparently didn't apply to the blatant sex references, violent deaths, and extreme gross-out humor. In fact, there was an online game on the website called Mystery of the Rash Outbreak that has strong language.

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