Shorts
I hate Sharkboy and Lavagirl. I harbor a general dislike for the Spy Kids. If it’s family fare with Double R at the helm, I’m the dad using redirect tactics on my ADHD children at the theater…”Hey, look! There’s a bum! Let’s roll his ass!” This typically works, until the DVD’s are released, then I’m the dad praying for the DVD player to break after the 10th successive viewing in one day…which is repeated every day…for months on end. Thank God for my crappy day job (and the extra scratch I get from bum-rolling), my tie and I would reverse roles.
Shorts centers on Toby “Toe” Thompson (Jimmy Bennet), an eleven year old with the unfortunate luck in finding himself at odds with the town ruffians. Their ring leader? Helvetica Black (possibly one of my favorite names for a villainess AND she comes with her own beautifully simplistic theme song), played by Jolie Vanier. Her dad? Carbon Black (James Spader), the head of Black Box Industries and owner of Black Falls, where everyone who works for B.B.I. lives, including Toe’s family, led by Jon Cryer and Leslie Mann. Toby’s first run in with the rainbow rock is after he gets pelted in the noggin with it, though you’ll quickly see that he isn’t the first kid, nor the last person, to have a turn with the wishing rock. Of course, everyone is reckless with their wishes, but thankfully the audience is spared from the final everything-back-to-status-quo wish, though this ending isn’t that much better, or all that different. If only one of them wished for a gun, so that I could be put out of my misery…
It took awhile, or maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention, but Rodriguez’s association with Quentin Tarantino finally has him giving that out-of-sequence-story telling technique a shot. He does it rather well, weaving several short stories together neatly, utilizing his narrator very effectively to keep it coherent for the slower children in the audience. This approach helped keep my interest up despite the overall dull storyline. The actors were neither great nor horrible, but I think the blame lies on the characters being poorly developed. Giving every character one trait that defines them (along with a name to match-most notably “Nose,” who likes to pick boogers) does not make a character necessarily good or interesting. That’s probably my biggest beef with double R’s films; they’re all style, no substance – and Shorts couldn’t even show, let alone place, in style. Judging by the successes of his other family films, he obviously is doing SOMETHING right as far as milking parents by way of their children are concerned, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.
Exercise your parental rights and practice your anti-drug techniques by just saying “No” to your children’s heartfelt desire to tug your purse strings on this one. Make them watch Goonies instead – kid’s need direction.
