Il mistero della pietra magica

One-man film crew Robert Rodriguez' moonlighting into kiddie fare has at best produced mixed results, here epitomized by his latest juvenile project, "Shorts," a wishy-washy tale about kids finding their inner heroes and saving their smalltime town. Returning to the hyper-earnest mode of his "Spy Kids" trilogy, director-writer-DP-editor Rodriguez nonetheless can't muster enough cheerio for anyone but the youngest viewers to get over an overabundance of special effects and a monotonous feeling.

As well as pertaining to the stature of its young protagonists, the title of Rodriguez' wishful thinking tale concerns his narrative's central gimmick: a series of short episodes shown as per the whims of its young narrator Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett). Told in a fractured timeline, the series of interlocked episodes show how the town of Black Falls is dominated by the techno mogul (James Spader), and how a group of kids -- including Toe -- change the neighborhood for the better with the help of a rainbow-colored stone that grants the wishes of anyone who possesses it.

Save for the campy blink-first-standoff between two kids, "Shorts"' subplots never evolve into a compelling unit, with Rodriguez running amok with his "homemade" CGI -- perhaps reflecting the unrestrained euphoria of a kid getting his hands on a magic stone -- that does nothing to add to the novelty of its uncharacteristic style. Ultimately predictable and reeking of half-assed effort, the whole procedure gets exhausting after a few rounds of cutesy moxie, though at least Rodriguez wisely sticks to the context of his movie's title and keeps his film reasonably concise.

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.

You could do worse than to take your kids to see this film.

I'm rating this on the same level I rated "The Final Destination" and "GI JOE."

"The Final Destination" was a silly gimmicky horror film. "GI JOE" was a silly generic action film. "Shorts" is just a silly generic kids film, and when I say it's a kids film, I mean it's a KIDS film.

Children will either like it or they won't. It's got a lot of stuff in it that will probably keep an undiscerning 5-10 year old entertained for an hour and a half. However, anyone over a certain age will just go... "Hey, that's kind of ridiculous..."

The acting ranges from good to bad. The special effects are mostly obvious CG effects. The story is kind of lame, but it's a kids movie. Really everything in this film is just... OK. It's not a terrible film, but there's nothing that really makes it stand out either. The one thing I kind of liked was the story structure and editing style, but that's just about it.

I just think its a kids film that tries a little too hard to be "just for kids." It doesn't really respect the intelligence of the kids watching it, but if the kids aren't picky anyway, it's not really a problem.

I wouldn't really recommend it, but there's nothing wrong with it. If you just want to take your child to a movie, and this is the only thing playing, I'd say go for it. But its not something you absolutely have to see.

5/10 - Generic kids film, but it's not terrible.

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.

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.