"Lethal Weapon" meets "Innerspace"!. That may not have been the exact pitch for "Osmosis Jones", but it's certainly the bottom line for Warner Bros' latest attempt to crack the animation market.
A 'mix and match' exercise of the studio's past animation successes (ie "Space Jam"), and with the clear intent of appealing to hip audiences, "Osmosis Jones" pays for this approach by its sheer conventionality - especially when placed next to the astounding computer-generated wizardry and savvy wit of "Shrek".
Which isn't to say the film isn't fun. The story begins after arch-slob Frank (Murray) devours a disease-ridden egg, leaving the animated inhabitants of City of Frank (aka Frank's body) to save him from the evil virus Thrax (Fishburne). City of Frank residents include Osmosis Jones (voiced by Rock) - a white blood cell 'cop' - and Drix, an heroic flu pill.
The inner-body experience allows writer Marc Hyman to play around with the well-worn cliches of the buddy-cop genre - to suprisingly good effect. And the animation fares better than the Farrelly-directed live action scenes, which end up feeling rather flat.
The City of Frank is well-realised, even if it does overdo the pun quota, while any satire is lazily corporate or, in a "Matrix"-style fight scene - yes, yet another one - long overdone.
Chris Rock uses his best Eddie Murphy routine to play Osmosis Jones, while Frasier star Hyde Pierce's Drix is a reliable straight man. William Shatner, meanwhile, applies the smarm to good effect as the city's Mayor Phlegmming.
"Osmosis Jones" plunders far and wide and emerges as an enjoyable, if vastly underachieving, diversion.