Shorts : Movie Review


Austin's rebel without a crew, Robert Rodriguez works in exactly two filmmaking modes: fast, cheap, genre violence (the El Mariachi trilogy, Sin City, Planet Terror) and fast, cheap, CGI-overloaded family adventure (the Spy Kids trilogy, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D). One of the latter, Shorts is a cute and mildly clever fantasy about a nerdy suburban tween named "Toe" (Jimmy Bennett), who finds a rainbow-colored stone with wish-fulfillment powers; with the comic elasticity of a Tex Avery cartoon, the simplistic plot's limitless possibilities are digitally and unsubtly rendered.

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