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Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) has no stomach for fighting a giant booger monster in Robert Rodriguez’s comedy “Shorts.” |
Robert Rodriguez totally gets pre-adolescent boys.
So does “Shorts,” his daffy, witty and inventive new comedy crammed with booger monsters, belligerent bullies, magic stones, neglectful parents, evil bosses, insecure heroes and a girl appropriately named “Hel.”
Don’t let the Saturday morning cartoon subject matter fool you. This is one smart, subversive little comedy that has plenty to say about intrusive technology, basic family values and the dangers of ambiguous language.
“Shorts” celebrates Rodriguez’s return to the juvenile fun and strong moral values he employed in his “Spy Kids” movies before he ran into a cinematic ditch with his bizarre “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D,” inspired by his 7-year-old son Racer Rodriguez.
“Shorts” is not about pants, as you might guess, but a compilation of five film shorts that tell a single narrative, albeit knocked out of chronological order. (Read more…)