Much like the Space Jam films that were produced under the same Warner Bros. Animation banner, there is such a tonal disconnect between the live-action and animated sequences that it feels as if we’re channel surfing between two separate films concurrently. 

The Farrelly brothers are the top name attached to this project, but they apparently only contributed the live-action sequences—which is very clearly the worse half of the film. There’s absolutely no sign that they were supervised by an established director. One would assume they were just assembled by whatever second unit television director was available each week throughout the production schedule.

The entire point of including the live-action side of things is so that you can mine the situations for dramatic irony and juxtapose the low stakes of the real world with the high stakes of the animated one. The filmmakers seem to be vaguely aware of this, but rarely show any genuine interest in developing that dynamic into anything genuinely amusing.

They seem content to use the high-concept premise as nothing more than a vehicle for dad jokes based upon translating the same issues of our lives into life in a sandbox built out of human anatomy (“my grandparents came over on the umbilical cord”).

Try as I might to shut my brain off and have a good time, I just couldn’t. Chris Rock is revealing himself to be the Kevin Hart of the last generation by offering a lead voice performance that becomes grating before you’ve passed the first act. The one bright spot is Laurence Fishburne’s villainous turn, but his character is left so vaguely defined that it’s all for naught.

When the film began by harping so strongly on Bill Murray’s character’s dietary choices having existential effects on the world within his body, I thought we might be getting a prescient allegory for man-made climate change, but alas, the film was as empty-caloried as his character’s nutritional choices.