The kid-centric film Shorts revolves around a mysterious rainbow-colored Wishing Rock that arrives on Earth from some distant galaxy.

Hold the rock and make a wish — whether it’s that your braces fall off your now-straight teeth or that a swamp is filled with crocodiles to stop your enemies — and it will be instantly granted.

Halfway through Shorts I wished that I had a Wishing Rock so I could wish that Shorts were over. Poof!

But, no such luck.

A film that will test the patience of anyone beyond the age of 9, Shorts is from Texas director Robert Rodriguez whose output ranges from very violent films for adults — El Mariachi, Sin City, the Planet Terror sequence in Grindhouse — to special effects-filled adventure movies for children — the Spy Kids movies, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lavagirl 3-D and now Shorts.

But Rodriguez tends to overdo the kids films with too much plotting and running around. Although the first two Spy Kids movies were fun, Shark Boy was a disaster based on a story idea from his 7-year-old son.

Shorts is not quite as bad as that, but it seems silly and overproduced, with too many crocodiles and pythons and tiny flying saucers and a giant robot made of black boxes raging across the screen.

By the time the Giant Booger turned up, looking like a waddling piece of sludge with an enormous eye, the film’s limits of goodwill have been reached. Short’s simple story — about a boy trying to get out from under the thumbs of the bullies who torment him daily and win the attention of his overworked parents — is all but lost in the mayhem of explosions and attempts by just about everyone in the cast to get hold of the Wishing Rock.

The film is spaced out into a series of “Episodes,” like a TV show, although they are not always consecutive, jumping from the present to the past to explain the background of some of its elements.

The most amusing Episode is the first one — “The Blinkers” — in which a brother and sister begin a stare contest to see which one will blink first. This actually lasts several days and makes for some clever moments, the characters turning up from time to time throughout the rest of the movie.

Shorts is set in the company town of Black Falls, whose dominant feature is a black high-rise. It’s the headquarters of a corporation that makes the Black Box, a wonder gadget that can be everything from “the ultimate communications device” to a dog groomer to a toaster with the flick of a button, kind of like the Transformers.

Mr. Black (James Spader), the cutthroat boss of it all, is worried that other manufacturers are catching up to the miraculous features of his Black Box.

So he creates a contest between two teams of workers to come up with an idea that will keep his Black Box on top. The winners get bonuses; the losers get kicked out of their houses in Black Falls. Unfortunately, the opposing teams are led by the married Thompsons (Leslie Mann and Jon Cryer), who find themselves competing against one another.

The Thompsons are so intent on winning that they become glued to their own Black Boxes, communicating with each other across the dinner table by text messages. They have little time for their son, Toby “Toe” Thompson (Jimmy Bennett), who is bullied every day at school by Helvetica Black (Jolie Vanier), the mean-spirited daughter of Mr. Black, and her dastardly cohorts.

The tables turn very quickly for Toe, however, once he finds the Wishing Rock and its team of tiny flying saucers that do his bidding in getting even with Helvetica. The little green men inside the saucers, who look like small pickles, are eager to help Toe.

This leads to a funny sequence set in a classroom as the teacher is trying to delicately put one drop of red liquid into an experiment beaker, but other than that the laughs are surprisingly few. Soon everyone is after the Wishing Rock and things go really bonkers when the adults discover its magical properties. But, by then, Shorts is spinning wildly out of control in a one-upmanship game of special effects.

There’s a wise, cautionary warning in Shorts about people who spend so much time on their techno-babble gadgets that they miss the chance to establish real relationships with their own families. Fortunately, it’s well stated. However, much of the rest of the film seems an inconsequential far-fetched fantasy.

Very young children might find the splashy array of effects amusing and Toe’s plight might strike a chord with them. But for the rest of us Shorts just won’t be short enough.

**Shorts

Starring: Jimmy Bennett, Leslie Mann, Jon Cryer, James Spader, Jolie Vanier, William H. Macy, Kat Dennings, Trevor Gagnon.

Rated: PG, contains action violence, rude humor.

mjanuson@projo.com