I loved this film! “Shorts” is every kids’ fantasy come true when a magic Wishing Rock falls out of a storm ready to grant the kids their every wish.

“Shorts” is a film about an 11-year-old boy and his neighbors in Black Falls, where everyone in town works for Black Box Industries, which makes a do-all gadget with some major problems. He and his newfound friends discover a mysterious colorful Wishing Rock, but find themselves having a hard time making good wishes. Soon things get out of hand, as the rock is passed from kid to kid and parent to parent, and their already strange town becomes even weirder.

I was surprised that I had never seen any of the kid actors in the movie in anything before, except Jimmy Bennett, who plays Toe Thompson, the main character. However, my favorite actor in “Shorts” was definitely Jolie Vanier who plays Helvetica, the head of the bullies at Black Falls and daughter of the power-hungry Black Box Industries owner, Carbon Black. She was amazing, especially in one scene where she is threatening to eat the classroom fish. I thought the acting was overall really good, even with more than half the cast being made up of middle school kids.

What I really liked about “Shorts,” though, was it was extremely original, unlike most of the movies I’ve seen recently. What also was interesting was how the movie was pieced together and completely out of order: in “short” pieces, thus the film’s title “Shorts.” Unfortunately for my grandma, who came to see it with me, she couldn’t quite follow the complicated and out-of-order story line as well as my mom and I could. I laughed out loud countless times during the movie and the numerous jokes were hilarious and the whole movie was so exciting. It was a crazy kids’ movie with wacky things like crocodile armies and booger monsters, and it seemed to zoom by much too fast for my liking. My Grandma? Well, she gave up and fell asleep.

“Shorts” has been my favorite kids’ movie this year. I thought it was amazingly funny, and overall I loved “Shorts” and thought it was a great movie that will delight all kids and even some adults.

As I’m sure many people did, I spent the whole next morning after watching “Shorts” contemplating what I would do if a Wishing Rock plopped right out of the sky into my hands. Of course I would wish for world peace and the end of world hunger, but perhaps not before wishing for a couple billion dollars.

Aran Kirschenmann, 13, is a contributing writer for the Bellevue Reporter and a eighth grader at The International School in Bellevue.