What’s wrong with a little wild and crazy gross-out humor for kids every now and then? Writer/director Robert Rodriguez, who is well known for films such as Sin City and El Mariachi, as well as children’s fair like Spy Kids and Shark Boy and Lava Girl, has taken time out from the production of Sin City 2 and 3 to toss another kids offering our way, and it’s brimming with good, silly fun and giggles.

It’s clear that Rodriguez delights in his inner child, and he lets that slightly bad boy out with glee. Shorts is a series of chapters that tell the tale of the residents of Black Falls, a whimsical town where all the adults work for a company headed by the evil Mr. Black (James Spader), marketing and manufactureing a multi-purpose device called the “Black Box,” which does everything from sending texts to sorting laundry. The main character is a young lad named Toe Thompson (who played the young James Kirk in this summer’s Star Trek), who finds a magical, rainbow-colored wishing rock that grants whatever wish you make while holding it. The rock gets lost, stolen and passed around to adults and kids in the town alike, each one making selfish, whimsical wishes that wreck more and more havoc.

Of course a lot of it is ridiculous. That’s what makes it so much fun. How can you help but laugh when a giant, green booger threatens the neighborhood, and William H. Macy as the germophobic  Dr. Noseworthy admonishes his son, “I told you not to eat your boogers, now your booger is trying to eat you!” Or when Toe’s best friend “Loogie” (Trevor Gagnon) calls Mr. Black’s dark and dastardly daughter Helvetica (Jolie Vanier), “You…Type Face!” Throw in a Transformer type robot, crocodiles who eat homework and chase after you on two legs, a giant boyfriend and parents who really do become joined at the hip (played gamely by Leslie Mann and Jon Cryer) and you have most of every little boy’s silliest, naughtiest fantasies coming to life on the big screen.

Don’t be expecting Pixar or Dreamworks. Just prepare yourself for a fun matinee with your kids, nieces, nephews or neighborhood kids. You’ll get more of the humor than they will, but who cares? There are plenty of laughs to go around.

Rated PG

Lisa Johnson Mandell