Shorts

Shorts is amusing and doesn't take itself seriously at all. It resembles Malcolm in the Middle, with the central kid's narration, the high-speed montages, and exaggeratedly eccentric characters.

The plot winds around a strange rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes. Inevitable, this results as you would expect, with carelessly thought out wishes backfiring for some good-natured slapstick comedy.

The actors make a pretty good ensemble cast, and seem to be enjoying making the film, but I think they know there won't be a lot of Oscars handed out for this movie. The montages are used as a buffer between scenes. They simulate video camera rewinding, or the kid's confused memory right after eating too much sugary cereal--I'm not sure. But I do think they're used too much, making them distracting. The story is told in non-linear style, jumping from the present to flashbacks and back again, but this seems more of an unnecessary gimmick that really doesn't help tell the story.

The adult characters are nutty and over the top, but the actors faithfully go for the silliness and do adequately. The child actors do well too, especially newcomer Jolie Vanier, as the bitter rich girl bully. She has one of the few characters with enough dimension (albeit comically exaggerated) to logically evolve throughout the story, and plays the role to the hilt. Her facial expressions are hilarious, and dominate every scene she's in. This actress has a promising future.

What the movie makers were wishing for was a simple kids' comedy, and that's just what this film is, no more--no less. It's all just some good clean fun, clowning around for its own sake.

Shorts (PG, 1:29) — Fantasy: Fairy Tales, 3rd string, original

You might think that "Shorts" refers to the size of the heroes in this film, but in fact it's an allusion to the movie's structure, purporting to be a collection of short films recorded over a 2-day period but shown out of sequence, thus: 0: The Blinkers 2: Alien8ed 1: Wishing Rock 4: Big Bad Booger 3: The Miscommunicators 5: The End

The narrator is Toby "Toe" Thompson (Jimmy Bennett), a geeky kid with braces who's the butt of the bullying inflicted by his school's 2 rich kids, Helvetica and Cole Black, dotter and son of leading citizen Carbon Black (James Spader), whose company, Black Box Worldwide Inc., essentially owns the town of Black Falls.

One day Toe discovers a rainbow-colored rock that keeps whispering "make a wish" to him. Turns out the rock has the power to make those wishes come true. Toe starts out wishing for friends just as interesting and unique as he is and is rewarded by a double brace of tiny flying saucers crewed by LGMs who can use advanced tech to make many of his fondest dreams a reality.

The stone keeps getting misplaced, stolen, thrown away, picked up by accident, or launched at random, however, which means that almost every other character gets a chance to use it at one time or another, invariably with unforeseen consequences. This includes Toe's nabors, the Short boys (Laser, Lug, and notably Loogie), even geekier recluse Nose Noseworthy and his germophobic scientist dad, Toe's parents, and of course the Blacks.

This is all played very, very broadly for yuks. We are tipped off early that none of the cartoonish violence will have permanent effect when Loogie dives straight into the mouth of a huge crocodile to try to retrieve the wishing rock and gets koffed up moments later, slathered with half-digested croc lunch but otherwise unharmed.

There are more than just booger jokes, there's a giant animated booger. (Mercifully, there are no pee or fart jokes and only 1 fast visual gag involving pterodactyl poop. Thank you, Robert Rodriguez.)

The kids aren't very good actors, the jokes are corny, the special effects aren't particularly special, and the make-up is obviously fake (probably intentionally). None of this matters much, since it isn't intended to be taken seriously anyway.

Do all these shortcomings add up to a total loser? Not really. It's good-hearted as well as light-hearted, and the moral (be careful what you wish for) is something worth learning at about the age of the target audience. Plus which, not only does it not repeat itself, most of the ideas and gimmicks are original, and the dialog is occasionally witty.

Told in a very disjointed style, Shorts tells the tale of a group of children and adults living in the secluded Black Falls community where the popular Black Box all-in-one gadget is created. A rainbow coloured "wishing rock" falls from the sky during a rain storm, and bizarrely imaginative wishes are granted one-by-one for everyone that gets their hands on it. But not all wishes are as good as others.

Robert Rodriguez, an all-in-one filmmaker unlike any other, has created another imaginative family film I imagine he is proud of because he can sit and watch it with his children. While the man made his bones on bullet strewn bloody epics like Desperado and Frank Miller's Sin City, he has never been one to shy away from the family genre. But with every entry, the work just continues to become sloppier. Inspired by his children or not, Rodriguez must have known Shorts was a bad idea from the start. But this clearly mattered very little.

I am clearly in the wrong demographic to even begin deciphering what works and what does not in Shorts, but the film is a mess from start to finish. Employing a bit of the style of his buddy Quentin Tarantino, Rodriguez fashions the movie to work as smaller, unorganized stories within a grander framework (thus explaining the title of this opus). It is never confusing, but it becomes really annoying listening to the narrator, main character Toby "Toe" Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) tell us he does not remember the way the story goes every time the story jumps back or forward. Even worse is the addition of rewind, fast forward, and pause buttons that keep appearing during the film. Sure it is quirky and amusing the first time it shows up, but it just becomes bothersome and irritating as the film goes on. It really makes no sense why it is not told in any chronological order and just seems like Rodriguez mixed it up just to make the film a bit more interesting than it actually is.

The film's storyline, as simplistic as it is, really offers nothing new to the family genre. Inherent issues about crumbling family units, making friends, and just genuinely finding your place in the world have all been done to death, as have stories about people wishing for things. And while some of the issues do succeed in being imaginative and unique, the stereotypical family film issues are anything but. Rodriguez throws them all into the film (and even a minor subplot about small green aliens) with a no-holds barred attitude dictated by a man who could care less what people think. And when the film reaches its credits, it really feels like all he did was throw ideas at the wall and went with the ones that stuck.

As said, the imaginative wishes provided throughout the film by every character are what make the film. A booger monster, walking crocodiles and a baby who can speak to other through her mind are just the start of what you can expect to see during Shorts. And as the film goes on, the ideas just become sillier and more creative as they go along. But sadly, they do not appear all appear to be coming from the mind of Rodriguez. And that is where the film hits another bad turn: the special effects that create these wishes leaves a lot to be desired. Almost every single one looks freakishly amateur and unpolished. I know Rodriguez does a lot of the work himself, but after watching something as digital and special effects friendly as Frank Miller's Sin City, and how realistic that looks, it is a bit sad to look at this mess of a film as being from the same film-making group. It just feels all too disappointing, and like it was just pumped out too quickly before it was really perfected.

The acting, much like the rest of the film, is not all that great. Bennett is amusing in the lead role, giving everything he can as a child actor. Yet it does not seem like he was provided much to do outside of what the script asks for. He has a much stronger presence as a supporting character in Orphan, and was better even in his minuscule role as Young Kirk in the recent Star Trek reimagining. I was much more impressed with newcomer Jolie Vanier as the villainess Helvetica. She appears to have really dug into her bad girl role, and is given ample opportunity to make something of the role. And in a movie like this, that is never really all too hard. Adult actors like Kat Dennings, William H. Macy, Jon Cryer, Leslie Mann and James Spader are all given a fair amount to do, but never really seem to give it their all. They just seem to be going through the motions, acting as ridiculous and goofy as they need to, and not doing much else.

I started writing this review a few weeks ago after seeing the film, but forgot about finishing it. After watching the movie, it feels like Rodriguez acted the same way when he was writing and putting the film together. There are a few shells of interesting ideas that are on display at various points throughout the film, but they are never fully realized. I can really appreciate the family aspect of the production, and how much of a one-man team Rodriguez is. But this is just not a great film. It has imagination, but it lacks the ability to really stretch and mold it into something worthwhile. It easily could have been made into a stronger film if anyone on the team really put some effort into it. As it is, the newcomer Vanier is the only real reason to even attempt to sit through it.

3/10.

(Portions of this review originally appeared on http://www.dvdfanatic.com).

Just watched this movie from 2009 on a single children's matinée showing at 11 am with my movie theatre-working friend. With Robert Rodriguez' name attached, I expected something silly with some good laughs and I did. The title is meant to convey that it's a series of short segments as told by the main kid character in connection with a whole feature that deals with a wish-bearing rock. I think I liked the one about the booger monster the best with second being that bit where Leslie Mann and Jon Cryer as that kid's parents are being literally stuck together. Oh, and I didn't know that this was the first time that Cryer and James Spader had been in the same movie together since Pretty in Pink some 23 years previous. Anyway, I was amused most of the time and wouldn't mind seeing this again with my nieces and nephews. So on that note, Shorts is worth a look if you're in the mood for something imaginative and humorous.

OK, so I do not like movies like this. But I have to say that this movie was kinda fun, and it had an original plot that is something that kids really want to see. Good clean comedy comes out of this movie every once and a while. A good laugh can be expected from this film. I gotta say that the creator had a really good imagination when making this movie, he really knows what kids would really wish for. The kids acting was fair. On the other hand the adults become a little stupid. The special effects looked a little cheap. And sometimes the imaginative stuff goes a little to far. But I only recommend it for kids 9 and younger. They are sure to enjoy this film and have a thrill. But teens and adults may find this movie to be not so good, because since its meant to be only for kids, people over the age of 13 might find this movie to be way too childish. But it is somewhat fun. This is an ordinary family/kids movie which is slightly a little good as any other.