By Nigel Powlson

DIRECTOR Robert Rodriguez seems to veer quite happily from splatter violence to children's movies, as in his Spy Kids films.

That's not as strange as it may first seem, when you consider that even his "adult" films have an adolescent feel.

Rodriguez's taste for the juvenile is a good fit with Shorts, a barmy family comedy which looks like it has come straight out of the brain of an eight-year-old boy.

It's a demented, kaleidoscopic movie about picking your nose, bullying and fantasy adventures involving castles, mad scientists and gadgets that can do everything.

James Spader is Mr Black, the inventor of the wondrous black box gadget that's made in a Willy Wonka-style factory.

The mum and dad of schoolboy Toe (Jimmy Bennett) work for Black and have to reinvent the gadget or lose their jobs.

Meanwhile their son is being bullied by Black's daughter Helvetica (Jolie Vanier).

But then Toe is hit by a multi-coloured stone that turns out to be a wishing rock which makes dreams, or nightmares, come true.

Soon we have a kid's bogey that turns into a monster, Toe's mum and dad sharing the same body, and rampaging man-eating crocodiles on the loose.

Made in frenetic style and split into a series of shorts that are shown in the "wrong" order, this really is one madcap, breathless offering.

It's one purely for the kids, which may just work for them if, as you suspect, Rodriguez has managed to deliver everything a certain kind of small boy might want in a 90-minute movie.