Movie Info

AUDIENCE:

Children and adults

RATING:

PG for mild action and some rude humor.

GENRE:

Action/Adventure, Kids

RELEASE:

August 21, 2009

STARRING:

Jimmy Bennett, Kat Dennings, Devon Gearhart, Leslie Mann, Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, James Spader, Trevor Gagnon

DIRECTOR:

Robert Rodriguez

DISTRIBUTORS:

Warner Bros. Pictures

WEB SITE:

Shorts: Official Movie Web site

 

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MOVIE REVIEW

Shorts: Family Fun with a Magical Element

Movieguide Magazine

What's This?

CBN.com - Shorts is the story of what happens in a suburban community when a “wishing rock” appears and begins to be used by both the children and adults.

“Toe” is a young boy picked on by the Helvetica and her brother. The two bullies are the children of Mr. Black, the man who runs the gadget company for which all the families in town work.

The wishing rock is first discovered by Loogie, who with his brothers end up making a mess of their wishes, including conjuring upright walking crocodiles and huge cobras. The rock is passed to Toe, who uses the rock to get friends, but they turn out to be aliens who eventually leave him. The rock also ends up with Nose, a germ phobic boy whose wish makes his dad’s science experiments a success but that, in turn, creates a huge “booger monster.” The wishing rock ultimately gets into the hands of the Black family, who lead the whole town in a battle for the rock and the ability to have unlimited wishes.

Shorts is a fun movie designed with children, especially boys, in mind. The story is fast paced with many special effects dinosaurs and comical monsters. The story, which is episodic in nature, is told as a series of short “chapters” (hence the title Shorts), which are not told sequentially. This adds to the movie’s fun.

The story has one key problem and that is that the wishing rock is so powerful that the climax falls flat. The rock has been used to create a huge robot creature but instead of wishing for “reversal” or “put everything back to normal” as was done earlier, the boys keep wishing for bigger things to fight the monster. There’s no real reason to do that, except to create a stronger ending.

Shorts has a good message, though certainly well traveled, of parents valuing relationships more than work. However, there is a strong humanist worldview as the characters say that the power is in yourself. Shorts also contains strong politically correct content, including a strong environmentalist viewpoint with references to global warming.

There is, obviously, a strong magical element in the movie’s slightly mixed pagan worldview. The magic is ultimately rejected, however, because it’s too strong and people misuse it or goof it up. There’s also some “bathroom” humor, but it is mild in nature.

Shorts is a fun movie, but caution and discernment is required for the worldview elements.

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