Heard the one about the orphan zebra who thinks he's a racehorse and enters the Kentucky Open? No? Then take one unsophisticated Babe clone, add a dollop of Seabiscuit sentiment, stir in a positive message and you have Racing Stripes. Director Frederik Du Chau's comedy uses the trick of live animals with CGI mouths to lip-synch the broad one-liners, but this yarn tries too hard to appeal to all members of the family. Some of the in-jokes will undoubtedly go over younger children's heads ("Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in", hams Joe Pantoliano's gangster pelican), while the toilet gags (courtesy of two horseflies) prove way too juvenile for adults. Although well served by its human actors (Bruce Greenwood, Hayden Panettiere and Wendie Malick) and voice cast (which features Dustin Hoffman, Frankie Muniz and Whoopi Goldberg), this remains a charmless, predictable and rather dated confection.

Shattered illusions are hard to repair -- especially for a good-hearted zebra named Stripes who's spent his life on a Kentucky farm amidst the sorely mistaken notion that he's a debonair thoroughbred. Once he faces the fact that his stark stripes mark him as different, he decides he'll race anyway. And with help from the young girl who raised him, he just might end up in the winner's circle.