I’m intensely conflicted about what to write about Robert Rodriguez’s newest outing, Shorts.  It’s clear that, despite the fact that he’s gunning for more family-friendly stuff of late, you can still feel the influence of his grittier stuff like Machete, Planet Terror and From Dusk Til Dawn.

And it’s this strange synthesis that leaves me a bit nonplussed.

The plot is about what you’ve gathered from the trailers–a magic wishing rock falls from the sky one day for no clear or explained reason, and the town of Black Falls, a planned community revolving almost entirely around a corporate headquarters, runs amok, horrendously misusing its powers.

Where Shorts is somewhat different is that, mostly because it’s told by a ten year old with all the short term memory of certain breeds of hamster, it’s presented as a series of interconnected short films shot out of order.  They’ll start with zero, a fairly pointless exercise about a brother and sister who regularly engage in long-term staring contests, so much so that they’ve developed the ability to sleep with their eyes open.  They’ll then segue into a series of other shorts, starting with a lonely boy with few friends and braces like railroad ties who’s regularly hassled by the town’s bad girl, her lunkhead brother, and their gang of small evil children.  They’ll move to a threesome of adventure-craving brothers who aren’t too bright, a germophobe engineering wizard and his brilliant put-upon son, a costume party gone terribly wrong and finally the end of the whole mess in which pretty much every character we’ve seen so far comes back to settle the assortment of loose ends that have spawned throughout the film.

On the one hand, Shorts is a highly unique and highly entertaining film that takes a lot of chances and succeeds about half the time.  On the other hand, Shorts is a poorly written pile of garbage with lots of unresolved plot holes that watches like it was conceived, whole and breathing, by a particularly bright ten year old who just learned about narratives last week in Mrs. Thompson’s English class that takes a lot of chances and FAILS about half the time.

I found myself wondering how long it would take before someone noticed that the town bad girl’s name was actually a FONT (her highly unlikely name: Helvetica Black.  They’ll make a SONG out of it while she’s driving a rocket-propelled motorcycle in the grandest Rose McGowan tradition despite the fact that she’s about TEN.) and sure enough, when the movie was almost done, the put-upon genius son of the town’s germophobic engineer called her “Typeface” and all was briefly well.

Basically, Shorts is one of those movies that you don’t want to insult too loudly because it actually tried to do something different for a change, and in Hollywood, that’s all too rare.  However, Shorts only manages to succeed in the chances it takes roughly half the time, therefore, the Screenhead Ten Scale recognizes effort and gives Shorts a seven out of ten: a five for its successes, and two bonus points for effort.  It’s a great kids’ movie, but adults shouldn’t be too insulted by it.