Review of Shorts (2009) by Luke K — 13 Sep 2009

Shorts is the continuation of father of five Robert Rodriguez's quick 'n cheap chain of bite-sized adventures with the kindergarten crowd squared in their colourful crosshairs.

Following the success of the spry Spy Kids series and the quick corkscrew into obscurity of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, the prolific Texan posits his latest live-action cartoon against the fictional town of Black Falls. A mysterious rainbow wishing stone drops from the sky, throwing the dull, strictly regimented social strata into upheaval as the outlandish desires of Black Falls' selfish and/or misguided denizens are miraculously granted passage into existence. So, for the shorts in the audience, cue (in ascending order of awesomeness): a self-replenishing stock of chocolate bars; an icky, sticky, oozing snot-monster; a telepathic toddler; diminutive flying saucers who beat back at school bullies; a crocodile army; and a multi-storey robot with a fondness for the destruction of sky-scrapers. For the talls in tow, the pleasures might not be quite so self-evident, but goofy turns from the high-class likes of William H. Macy, Leslie Mann, James Spader, John Cryer and burgeoning vixen du jour to-be, Kat Dennings, certainly brighten the prospect.

Rodriguez's family flicks will probably never hold the interest of his grown-up pulp pulse-racers for anyone old enough to gaze unaided over the candy bar, but with their emphasis on friendship and welcome tendency to engage kids on kids' terms, anklebiters could do a lot worse. Here, Shorts' structural shuffling (the film unfolds as a chronologically scrambled series of interconnected vignettes) might make for a few puzzled rugrats, but viewers of all ages can relish the performance of young Jolie Vanier as a deviously devilish schoolyard antagonist. With more than a ghost of Wednesday Addams about her - seasoned with a swish of kick-ass chic - Rodriguez gleefully paints her as a pipsqueak facsimile of Planet Terror's Cherry Darling in a memorable scene where she takes to the highway on a custom-conjured and jet-propelled motorbike. In fact, so completely does she claim the frame, he even sees fit to provide her with her own shredding theme song. Don't be surprised if Ms. Vanier's is a name you'll soon recognise.