O Fada do Dente

This was another silly time filler I decided to spend time watching with my movie theatre working friend. It stars Dwayne Johnson as a hockey player who gets the title nickname because of the teeth he knocks out when he scores. But when he nearly tells the daughter of a woman he's dating (Ashley Judd) what he thinks of that fairy tale, he gets summoned by a caseworker named Tracy (Stephen Merchant) to the head of Tooth Fairyland (Julie Andrews) for a two week penance of becoming one. Billy Crystal shows up as someone who provides all the material to become the tooth fairy. I'll stop there and just say there's some funny moments between Crystal and Johnson and quite a few with the former Rock and this Tracy person. And Andrews brings some stern yet gentle authority to her role. And there are some good lessons for the kiddies in the audience. So in summation, no great shakes, but Tooth Fairy is okay filler for 90 or so minutes...

Dwayne Johnson proves once again, that he is more than just muscles. And his eyebrow of course. He can jump from action into a kids movie just like that. Something a few stars in the 80s had big problems with (at least commercially speaking).

And this movie delivers. It never set out to be, the best movie in the world. It is there to entertain. And entertain it does. The viewing experience get enhanced if you watch it with teenagers or kids. They will just love the movie. And so will you, if you watch it with them.

Of course it is very predicable and it has a few other flaws too. But the charisma of Dwayne, the wit of Merchant and the overall good design of the movie, might make you forget about that. Just relax, sit back and enjoy.

There's quite a lot to like in this fun comedy, but I'm an adult who usually goes for Tarantino or Fellini. There's also quite a lot that is a bit painful. One liners playing on the word 'tooth' for starters!

There's some inspired casting - not just the Rock but Stephen Merchant and Julie Andrews. It was Merchant, all 6'7" (his character has him as 6'9"!) ganglyness of him as Dwayne Johnson's (The Tooth Fairy) fairy probation officer that kept me watching. Andrews, as the Fairy Godmother (the boss of the Tooth service) is a nice touch.

Johnson, in bright blue tutu, tights and wings looks ridiculous, of course and sends it up well. Kids will find his miniaturisation and other grotesque special effects funny and engaging.

I'm not usually in a habit of watching kid's films (I have none to share it with) but as it was on Sky Movies, thought I'd give it a try. It's generally likable, most kids will enjoy it, but you won't find me buying it on DVD.

Trying to level any serious criticism at director Michael Lembeck's Tooth Fairy is like four hardened grizzled WW II vets hand-cranking one of those rotating anti-aircraft guns with four different barrels pointing at a bunch of screaming Japanese Zeros around so they can blast an orange kitten out of a tree. Except the kitten is kind of an asshole and it's 1956 so we're not actually at war with Japan anymore, so you know... maybe it's not the worst idea in the world.

Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson plays Derek "the Tooth Fairy" Johnson, the beloved bruising left-winger on the local minor hockey team. He started as a skill player, a dangler, an offensive prospect that had his dreams dashed by a shoulder injury, and he's now happy to play a couple of minutes a night, hammer the opponents' star player, and spend the rest of the game in his custom recliner in the penalty box. He's a cartoon pragmatist, dispensing hard truths about the impossibility of dreams coming true to young hockey players wanting to be just like him.

As a result, he is summoned to Fairyland, and sentenced by head fairy Lily (Julie Andrews) to two weeks' duty as a Tooth Fairy, a real-deal winged creeper with a bat-belt full of spy gadgets and a lanky, awkward case worker with fairy aspirations of his own (Stephen Merchant, co-creator with Ricky Gervais of The Office). Lessons are learned, a whole bunch of obvious groaner gags are hatched, and everything, eventually, from a guitarist kid's fear of failure to a single mom's love to a future hockey star's cockiness and on and on is resolved in a Really Pleasant Way.

It's a kids movie, pure and simple, endlessly saccharine and full of pratfalls, Healthy Moral Lessons and magic fairy dust. It's also incredibly dull, and a massive waste of what's actually a great cast - Merchant is consistently funny and Billy Crystal is in vintage form as Fairyland's gadgetmaster Q equivalent, and Johnson is as charming as ever. Six year old kids will probably laugh their six year old heads off, but the dullness of the script, the predictability of the gags and the moral convenience and simplicity of the story is going to bore anybody not actually invested in the "ok wait is there actually a tooth fairy or not, dad" debate.

You want this film to be better, just because it could have been. It's stuffed full of legitimate talent and it remarkably doesn't feel like a cynical cash-in, it just feels diluted. It is going to accomplish its ostensibly stated goal, entertaining children, but outside of a few laughs here and there it's not going to do much for anyone else. 4/10

This is a cute film. I enjoyed it. I think it did what it was supposed to do, it made me laugh and was easy to watch. One of the few bad things I have to say about it is that it's formulaic, a little long and you know what the outcome will be before it gets there. Regardless of that, Dwayne, Julie, Billy and the English fellow do their part to make the film worth while, while Ms. Judd and the child actors make the story come together. There's a fair amount of whimsy and reality which makes it great for children and adults who are children at heart, the little cameo by Seth Macfarlane doesn't hurt either. All it in all it's not the best, but it's not the worst.