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Shorts Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG (for mild action and some rude humor) Genre: Family Theater release: August 21, 2009 by Warner Brothers Directed by: Robert Rodriguez Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes Cast: Jimmy Bennett (Toe Thompson), Trevor Gagnon (Loogie Short), Jake Short (Nose Noseworthy), Jolie Vanier (Helvetica Black), Leslie Mann (Mom Thompson), Jon Cryer (Dad Thompson), Kat Dennings (Stacey Thompson), William H. Macy (Dr. Noseworthy), James Spader (Carbon Black) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

There are, in general, two kinds of Robert Rodriguez films. First there are the rather pulpy and sometimes nihilistic films for grown-ups, full of R-rated sex and violence: films like From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City and Planet Terror. And then there are the kids' movies, full of imagination and bizarre plot twists that feel like the sort of thing a child might have made up if he or she were improvising a story for their friends: films like Spy Kids and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl.

Shorts is the second kind of film, and if it doesn't quite rise to the heights of the original Spy Kids, it at least demonstrates that Rodriguez is still in touch with his inner child—and that he still knows how to tell a story that feels like it could have been written by his own children, a few of whom actually have small parts in the film.

Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) makes a wish

The film, which is divided into several short chapters—hence the title—gets off to a great start with an episode about two kids known only as "the Blinkers." A brother (Cambell Westmoreland) and a sister (Zoe Webb) dare each other to a staring contest, and they proceed to spend the next few hours, if not days, staring into each other's eyes without blinking once: whether they are catching the bus, sitting in class, or even playing video games, the two siblings never break eye contact, as each of them waits for the other to blink first.

The concept is simplicity itself, and, except for the exaggerated duration of the contest, it is not that far removed from what real kids do all the time. After this, however, the movie gets a bit more complicated—and Rodriguez mixes things up a bit, literally, by arranging the episodes slightly out of order, though for no particularly obvious reason.

The bulk of the film revolves around Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett), an 11-year-old who doesn't really have any friends but does, somehow, have a few enemies, in the form of Helvetica Black (Jolie Vanier) and her big brother Cole (Devon Gearheart). When Toe tries to convince Helvetica that the reason she's been picking on him is because, deep down, she loves him, that just makes her mad, with predictably negative results.

William H. Macy as Dr. Noseworthy

At one point, Cole and his friends start throwing rocks at Toe—and one of these stones just happens to be a magic wishing rock covered in the colors of the rainbow. When someone holds the rock and says the words "I wish," whatever it is that the person wished for soon comes to life—though not necessarily in the way you might expect. For example, when Toe wishes he had some friends, he is soon visited not by other kids his age, but by tiny aliens who travel in a flying saucer that is roughly the same size as, well, a saucer.

Toe soon meets other kids who have already come into contact with the wishing rock, or are about to. Chief among these are Loogie Short (Trevor Gagnon)—who, upon wishing that either he or one his siblings would be really smart, discovers that it is his baby sister who has suddenly developed super-intelligence—and Nose Noseworthy (Jake Short), whose father (William H. Macy) is a germaphobic scientist who has covered their house in plastic.

The things brought to life by the wishing stone are suitably strange and amusingly childlike, from a fortress that rises out of the ground to a bunch of crocodiles that start walking on their hind legs—though the wishes the children make sometimes defy logic. Faced with a monster or some other problem, the children never simply wish for it to vanish or undo itself; instead, they tend to wish, say, that they were giant insects and fighting that problem the hard way. In a few cases, the wishes-come-true are also kind of gross, not least when the children are pursued through one of their homes by a giant booger monster.

Lug (Rebel Rodriguez), Loogie (Trevor Gagnon), and Laser (Leo Howard) wish upon the rock

Still, every now and then there is a gag like the one in which Loogie wishes he had telekinesis (the ability to move things with his mind), but he accidentally pronounces the word "telephonesis," thus causing a telephone to sprout from the left and right sides of his head: it's a delightful moment, not only because you can believe a kid would really make that kind of verbal mistake, but also because Loogie realizes he kind of likes the, uh, headset, and even though it looks rather odd, he doesn't want to wish it away just yet.

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