Dirs: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly; anim dirs: Piet Kroon, Tom Sito. US. 2001. 98 mins.

The Farrelly brothers and Bill Murray are the names that jump out of the credits, that promising-sounding combination plays a relatively minor role in Osmosis Jones, an animated/live action comedy that represents Warner's latest attempt to challenge the animation dominance of Disney - and Now - DreamWorks. In a crowded summer marketplace, it doesn't look likely that this sweet but slight effort will do too much to help Warner achieve its ambition, although the target audience of families and pre-teens may be more responsive when the film arrives in video stores.

Rather than blending live and animated material - as Warner's 1996 hit Space Jam did - Osmosis Jones alternates between the two. The Farrelly-directed live sequences serve mainly to kick off and then punctuate the story. The animated sequences, directed by Piet Kroon (who worked as storyboard artist on Warner's The Iron Giant and Quest For Camelot) and Tom Sito (an animator and writer on some of Disney's and DreamWorks' biggest successes), encompass most of the action and take up the majority of the film's running time.

Murray's Frank is a slobby widower who is constantly needled by his young daughter about his unhealthy eating habits. After Frank devours a less than pristine hard-boiled egg, the film enters the animated world of his insides, where Osmosis Jones, a loose canon white blood cell 'cop' (voiced by Rock), is assigned to sort out the trouble. As Frank's condition steadily worsens, Osmosis teams up with stiff-necked cold capsule Drix (Hyde Pierce) to hunt down potentially fatal virus Thrax (Fishburne).

The live-action segments contain a couple of typical Farrelly gross-out gags but they primarily deliver the film's moral, showing Frank's struggle to become a better, and healthier, dad.

The animated segments turn the workings of Frank's immune system into a buddy cop story a la Lethal Weapon, surrounding Osmosis with a cast of characters including a smarmy mayor (Shatner) and his sassy red blood cell assistant Leah (Norwood). The contrivance gives rise to some cute comedy, with Frank's armpit becoming a hangout for the Mafia and his latest zit a trendy nightclub.

The animation itself - partly hand-drawn, partly computer generated - is wildly colourful but has a fairly traditional look. While some of the characters are imaginatively conceived, others are on the bland side. Among the voice-over performances, Shatner and Rock stand out, though the latter's biting comedy style doesn't get full rein in this family-friendly context.

Prod cos: Warner Bros, Conundrum Entertainment.
Dist: Warner Bros.
Prods: Bradley Thomas, Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly, Zak Penn, Dennis Edwards.
Scr: Marc Hyman.
Cinematography: Mark Irwin.
Eds: Lois Freeman-Fox, Stephen R Schaffer, Sam Seig.
Prod des: Sidney Bartholomew Jr.
Music: Randy Edelman.
Main cast (voices): Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce, Brandy Norwood, William Shatner.
Main cast (live-action): Bill Murray, Chris Elliott, Molly Shannon.