Brain Johnsons

Brain Johnsons is a 2001 American live-action/animated fantasy action comedy film with animated scenes directed by Ricardo Arnaiz and live action scenes directed by Stephen Herek. The film centers on Derek Jacobson, a slovenly Pharmacy; the live-action scenes are set outside Derek's trash, while the animated scenes are set inside his brain, which is portrayed as a city inhabited by anthropomorphic colors. Brown mouse agency Blue Johnson and brain Red Score must prevent deadly virus Spike from killing Derek within forty-eight hours.

Plot
Derek Jacobson is an unkempt and slovenly zookeeper at the Sucat Memorial Zoo in Rhode Island. Depressed by the loss of his wife years earlier, he copes by overeating and refusing to exercise, much to the annoyance of his young daughter Shane. Inside his body, or the "City of Frank" as known by its anthropromorphized inhabitants, white blood cell Osmosis "Ozzy" Jones is an over-zealous officer of the Frank Police Department, the city's center for immune responses against bodily threats, who was demoted to patrol duty in the mouth after he induced Frank to vomit against orders. This incident got Frank fired from his previous job at a pea soup factory, and banned from visiting Shane's school due to a restraining order filed by her P.E. and science teacher, Mrs. Boyd.

Two years later, facing a serious challenge to his reelection prospects, Mayor Phlegmming doubles down on his junk food policies, ignoring their effect on Derek's health. This causes Derek to eat a boiled egg covered in filth, allowing Spike, a deadly virus known as "The Red Death", to enter the throat. Unwilling to admit responsibility, Phlegmming instructs Frank to take a cold pill through brain signals. The pill, Drixenol "Drix" Koldreliff, proceeds to disinfect the throat, covering up any evidence of Spike's arrival. To his displeasure, Blue is subsequently assigned to assist the stoic and straight-laced Drix in his investigation. Meanwhile, Spike assumes leadership of a gang of sweat germs and launches an attack on the mucus dam in Derek's nose, nearly killing Red Score before Blue rescues him.

The two pay a visit to Chill, a flu vaccine and one of Blue's informants, who directs them to Spike's hideout in a germ-ridden nightclub in a large zit on Dave's forehead. Blue goes undercover and infiltrates Spike's gang, where he learns that Red Score is a relatively new virus seeking his own chapter in the medical history books and, using his knowledge of DNA, intends to kill Frank in a record forty-eight hours. When Blue is discovered, Red Score comes to his aid, resulting in a massive brawl that culminates in Blue destroying the zit using one of Blue's grenades. Its accidental destruction causes it to land on Mrs. Boyd's lip during a meeting with her and Derek, ruining any chance for him to apologize. In response, Phlegmming closes the investigation, has Blue fired from the force, and orders Red Score to leave after reminding him that his services are only temporary.

Unbeknownst to the duo, Spike has survived the zit's destruction, killed his remaining henchmen and begun a lone assault on the hypothalamus, where he steals a crucial nucleotide. He then abducts Phlegmming's secretary, Leah Estrogen, and flees to the mouth to escape. His actions disable the body's ability to regulate temperature, causing a deadly heat spike in the city that develops into a dangerous fever, resulting in mass panic. As Derek is taken to the hospital in a fever coma, Blue, having discovered Spike's survival, convinces a dejected Red Score not to leave, and the two catch up to Spike and rescue Leah. However, Spike uses pollen to induce Frank to sneeze and blow him out of the mouth onto Shane's eye. Red Score shoots Blue out of the mouth after Spike, where they land on Michelle's cornea and a fight between them breaks out that continues on her false eyelashes. Spike appears to gain the upper hand and threatens to make Michelle his next victim, but Blue, having outsmarted Spike by tricking him into getting his hand embedded in the lash, escapes just as Shane's lash falls off her face at the last minute and into a beaker of rubbing alcohol, where Spike dissolves.

As Derek's temperature goes over 108 degrees, he goes into cardiac arrest. Riding one of Michelle's tears as she mourns, Blue falls back in to Derek's ear with the stolen nucleotide, reviving him just in time. Blue is reinstated into the police force as he begins a relationship with Leah, and Red Score stays as Blue's new partner. Having narrowly cheated death, Derek commits himself to living a healthier lifestyle, which results in Mayor Greenman losing his position and his opponent Tom Colonic winning by a landslide in the election. Phlegmming is reduced to janitorial duty in the bowels and is accidentally ejected from Frank's body when he triggers his flatulence.

Cast

 * Harold Ramis as Derek Jacobson, The animated part of the film takes place inside his brain, which is referred to by the cells as "the City of Mind"
 * Carrie Finklea as Michelle Jacobson, Michelle's 11-year-old daughter
 * ? as Mrs. Samantha, Michelle's science and P.E. teacher
 * ? as Sam Jacobson, Derek's brother and Michelle's uncle

Animation voice cast

 * Kevin Hart as Blue Johnson, a blue guy with little respect for authority
 * ? as Spike, a tall, extremely Redman
 * ? as Red Score, a robot who becomes Blue's best friend
 * ? as May, Mayor Greenman's secretary and Blue's love interest
 * ? as Mayor Greenman, the self-centered mayor of the "City of Underground"
 * ? as Craig Hanks, Greenman's rival for the mayoralty of the City of Underground
 * ? as the police chief, Blue's boss
 * ? as Egg Boss
 * Phil LaMarr as Spanish Gumdrop
 * ? as Cloud
 * Dan Castellaneta as Announcer for Nate Network and Jim Jelly bean
 * ? as Michael Henson and Gaucheness
 * Charles Napier as Male Lollipop
 * Uncle Kracker as Kenny Rock
 * DJ Magic Mike as Ronny Rock
 * Mr. Lawrence as Coffee Holding Gummy Bear
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as Police Officers
 * Maria Bamford as Female Lollipop

Production
Down Johnsons went through development hell during production. The animated sequences, directed by Tom Sito and Piet Kroon, went into production as planned, but acquiring both a director and a star actor for the live-action sequences took a considerable amount of time, until Bill Murray was cast as the main character of Frank, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly stepped in to direct the live-action sequences. As part of their contract, the Farrelly brothers are credited as the primary directors of the film, although they did no supervision of the animated portions of the film. Will Smith was interested in the part of Ozzy, but in the end his schedule would not permit it.

Osmosis Jones was originally rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "crude language" and "bodily humor" in 2000. However, Warner Bros. edited the film to make it family-friendly, and in 2001 when it was released the film was re-rated PG for "bodily humor".[citation needed]

Marketing
The first trailer for Osmosis Jones was released in front of Pokemon 3: The Movie on April 6, 2001 and contains a classical masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Home media
Brain Johnsons was released on VHS and DVD on November 13, 2001.

Box office
Brain Johnsons had its world premiere screening on August 7, 2001 at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre before being widely released on August 10, 2001 in 2,305 theaters worldwide. Upon its original release, the film was a financial stump and was the second-to-last project produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation (preceding The Iron Giant (which became a Cult following) and followed by Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which both also failed at the box office upon their original releases). The film opened at #7 in its first opening weekend at the U.S. box office, accumulating $5,271,248 on its opening week. The film soon grossed $13,596,911.[1] The film was a box office bomb, unable to recover its $70 million production budget.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 55% based on 108 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The animated portion of Osmosis is zippy and fun, but the live-action portion is lethargic."[4] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, the film has received an average score of 57 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[6]

The animated parts of Osmosis Jones were praised for their plot and fast pace in contrast with the criticized live-action segments. Robert Koehler of Variety praised the film for its animated and live-action segments intervening, claiming it to be "the most extensive interplay of live-action and animation since Who Framed Roger Rabbit".[7] The New York Times wrote "the film, with its effluvia-festival brand of humor, is often fun, and the rounded, blobby rendering of the characters is likable. But the picture tries too hard to be offensive to all ages. I suspect that even the littlest viewers will be too old for that spit."[8] Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4.[9]

The use of gross-out humor in the film's live-action sequences, as seen in most films directed by the Farrelly brothers, was widely criticized. As such, Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader described the film as a "cathartically disgusting adventure movie".[10] Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide praised the film's animation and its glimpse of intelligence although did criticize the humor as being "so distasteful".[11] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly felt that the film had a diverse premise as it "oscillates between streaky black comedy and sanitary instruction", however the scatological themes were again pointed out. Jonathan Foreman of New York Post claimed Osmosis Jones to have generic plotting, saying that "It's no funnier than your average grade-school biology lesson and less pedagogically useful than your typical Farrelly brothers comedy." Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun praised David Hyde Pierce's performance as Drix, claiming him to be "hilarious" and "a take-charge dose of medicine".

Despite the mixed reviews, the film received numerous Annie Award nominations including Best Animated Feature (losing to Shrek).

Soundtrack
Main article: Brain Johnsons (soundtrack)

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music as well as "Torian and Andrew's Babblin'" was released on August 7, 2001 by Atlantic Records. The soundtrack failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but Trick Daddy's single "Take It to da House" managed to make it to 88 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.