Review of Osmosis Jones

Introduction

When Disney started to lose their tight grip on outstanding cell animation about five years ago, other lesser companies, more renowned for their TV animation fare, began to fill the shoes of the house of the mouse. One of these companies is filling them well.

Warner`s animation has shone on the box they call TV for may years now with gems like Animaniacs and Batman, and let us not forget good old Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, Elmer and the gang.
Then a few years back they took the brave step into feature animation with The Iron Giant. This was critically acclaimed and put them up their on a pedestal alongside Disney and Even Don Bluth`s ,Hit and Miss, Studios.

Now Warner are back for the millennium with a rip-roaring, highly imaginative ride through the human body in the shape of Osmosis Jones. The movie has gags galore. It`s part live action and part cartoon, but not in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit way. It has charm and grossness at the same time. It`s more Inner Space meets Toy Story meets Something About Mary.

Video

The menus are mostly static with a few moving background images of cells accompanied by gloopy dripping noises. The main menu has all the usual element but with a twist. Each item is a play-on-words such as Deleted Spleens which changes to Deleted Scenes once selected. Other menus are either scored or have the same gloopy noises.

The Anamorphic picture is top notch, as you would expect for such a new animation release. The myriad of vivid colours used to create the inside of franks body just glow fabulously. The level of contrast is so good you almost get a 3-D depth to the whole picture, blacks are black and whites are pin sharp. This film is intoxicating to watch, just on a visual level. The subtle use of computer graphics is seamlessly mixed with the traditional cell animation as it was in The Iron Giant. The level of detail that has gone into the production of background scenes, character design and, well, everything is astounding.

Audio

The 5.1 Dolby Digital sound is also excellent. It switches well between the sedate live action scenes, that have ambient effects, and the more strident sounds used for the animation sequences. The bass extension is fabulous and demonstrated well in the first scene where Frank eats the Egg. We take a journey into Frank`s mouth and watch as the teeth chew and saliva gushes like a raging river. In this scene alone you get a thumping bass and aggressive surround use that really takes you into the action. You`d swear you were hanging onto that dangly thing at the back of Frank`s throat...the Uvula!

My only criticism, and this goes for many films lately, is as you watch the end credits roll you see the little logos that tell you how the film was presented in theatres. Most movies have the DTS logo in their credits but the DVDs don`t have a DTS soundtrack option. This seems to be still hit and miss and by now it should be common practise to include the DTS mix. I know some are not convinced that DTS offers a vastly greater listening experience than plain 5.1 DD but it would be nice to have the choice. That said there is only so much room on a disc and if other sound formats do come along and become popular, such as the new Dolby Headphone Technology which will appear on the region one release of Pearl Harbour, we could have an audio battle on our hands.

Features

Some great some not so great. The great includes an audio commentary entitled "Voices inside Fank`s Head" by animation directors Piet Kroon and Tom Sito. Writer Mark Hyman and producer Zak Penn. This is the usual chatter about the concept, production ideas and anecdotes and is entertaining and not as condescending as some Disney "This is how-we-did-this-kiddies" features.

Now the condescending comes in the form of two documentaries one called "Under the microscope" which gives us a brief behind the scenes on how-we-did-this-kiddies. The other is a look at the recording of the vocal artists for the movie. This has the main stars, Bill Murray, Chris Rock, David Hyde Pierce and Laurence Fishburne showing us kiddies how it was done again.

There is also a selection of deleted scenes. A tour of Frank`s anatomy, where you select an area on his body and get a clip of the film from that part of the body, dull.

Generally this is OK. just a bit too kiddie themed. The film itself has a lot of gross-out adult material and this is not reflected in the majority of the special features.

Conclusion

I love it, with a passion. One of the most original animation works to date. It`s been sadly overlooked and this shows by its U.S. DVD release date, just a week after it opened in the U.K. theatres. It will take a couple of watches to get all the jokes, like the tanker on the Vena Carva freeway taking Toe Cheese to the foot. With sound and picture that match each other equally make this another Warner gem to stand proudly along side The Iron Giant. If you have multi region capability this is a stateside disc not to be missed.