Osmosis Jones

The Farrelly brothers take a cartoonish turn. The concept is basically The Numbskulls (the Beano comic strip about the little folk who run your head), scaled up to US proportions: an entire body politic organised per representative democracy and the division of labour. And, as Hollywood teaches, when such a system becomes corrupted, it takes a maverick cop and his fat buddy to save the day. Meet jive-talking white blood cell Osmosis Jones, and his new partner in infection-fighting, a 12-hour cold suppressant capsule. The corrupt constitution in question belongs to zoo janitor Frank (Murray), who's not doing his immune system any favours eating boiled eggs off the monkey cage floor. Enter Thrax, a virus of rare toxic intent. The film is remarkably versatile, even if the Farrellys' live footage looks like the chimps commandeered the camera. The plot's so much old rote, and the characters have all the personality of protoplasm; but the anthropomorphising of this microcosmic metropolis is wonderfully imaginative, and the dialogue decidedly spiffy.