YOU WOULD BE more impressed by the oft-repeated fact that Robert Rodriguez directs, writes, edits, produces, scores and, for all I know, caters his own films if the beastly things did not so often look as if they had, indeed, been constructed by an overworked, distracted dilettante.

Sometimes, as with

Sin City

, he gets away with it. More often, as with the notorious

Shark Boy

and

Lava Girl

, he fails to make the case for promiscuous multi-tasking.

Sadly, his latest kids’ movie inclines more towards the latter class than the former. Thrown together as if by monkeys resting from their attempts to randomly type Shakespeare, Shorts has something to do with a young boy who finds a multicoloured stone that grants him unlimited wishes.

There’s also a plot about an evil conglomerate that markets a near-magic black box, which (like Rodriguez) can do any number of things tolerably well. We also meet a giant snot monster and a mad scientist played by William H Macy.

The movie claims to be composed of a series of interconnected short films, but one suspects this high concept was devised to excuse the juddering, episodic nature of an otherwise conventional story. The narrative chaos – like the bright colours, shrieked dialogue and careering camerawork – suggests the director believes all children have attention spans as short as his own. Has he not seen one of those eight-hour Harry Potter things?

Oh, well. At least it’s not in bleeding 3-D.