Tooth Fairy

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.

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...

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

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.

I got this on DVD as a Christmas present as I love a lot of fantasy movies like Enchanted,Shrek,Aquamarine not to mention the classic Disney movie Beauty & the Beast so I decided to check it out. Tooth Fairy stars ex WWE man The Rock (aka Dwanye Johnson)who plays Derek Thompson a ice hockey player who goes as "The Tooth Fairy". That night he tells his girlfriend's(Ashley Judd)daughter that tooth fairies don't exist but when he gets a cheque saying that he is in bail for 2 weeks he turns into a tooth fairy complete with a tutu(yeah a dude in tutu how hysterical can it get keep reading on). The head of the fairies world is of course played by Julie Andrews who looks fabulous here tells Derek that if he keeps telling kids that tooth fairies don't exist their world will be gone forever.

The problem I had with this movie was that there wasn't enough of gags and I felt like watching The Mighty Ducks meets Toothless(you know the one with Kirstie Alley)over and over again. I was disappointed that there wasn't enough of screen time with Billy Crystal(from WHEN HARRY MET SALLY)as he was only in it for like 5 minutes and then its all about Dwanye Johnson shining his gnashers for most of the film. Another was that it was kinda dull in some places.I suggest the movies that I mentioned below are a lot better. But still Tooth Fairy wasn't a bad flick but it wouldn't be my all time favorite as it was kinda lame. This film is definitely suitable for 4 year olds not for a 19 year old girl like me.

5/10