Every time you lose a tooth, The Rock gets some wings – ‘The Tooth Fairy’ Review

Posted on January 28, 2010 - 9:43pm by michael This is not a good time for the cineplexes. A quick scan of the top 10 movies at the box office at Rotten Tomatoes will reveal that eight out of ten are listed as rotten, including The Tooth Fairy, which has scored a whopping 15%. That’s even lower than Alvin and the Chipmunks’ 21%. I’ve been trying over the last several weeks to bring myself to watch and review the Chipmunks movie, but no luck so far, even though Jason Lee is in it. I did watch the first few minutes before caving in and leaving, but I can pretty much guarantee you that it is definitely not better than The Tooth Fairy. In fact, seeing The Rock prancing around in a tutu and wings like a big, airborne ballerina was much more fun than I had anticipated. I would venture to call this the first surprise of the year. It must be understood, however, that The Tooth Fairy is a kids movie from beginning to end, but I’m not a kid and I didn’t watch it with kids, and I still had a good time. Most of the reason is probably because of Dwayne Johnson’s charming performance and the fact that he was clearly having a great time with the role, and you may very well find it difficult not to have a good time along with him. [caption id="attachment_69864" align="alignleft" width="314" caption="Derek gets a dreaded summons to Tooth Fairy Duty."][/caption] The Spy Next Door was a kids movie that had pretty much nothing for anyone over the age of 9 or so, but The Tooth Fairy, while certainly childish, at least has some genuinely funny moments. So Johnson plays Derek Thompson, a retired professional hockey player who now coaches kids. His nickname in the big leagues was “The Tooth,” in accordance with his tendency to remove the chompers of the opposing teammates rather than because of any inconsistencies in his own grill. In fact, I would argue that his finely crafted row of gleaming pearlies may be part of the reason that he was cast in the movie, which might easily be called a 90-minute Colgate commercial. Brush your teeth, kids! So here’s a quick breakdown of the multitude of storylines. Derek is a retired hockey player coaching kids. He’s dating a woman named Carly (Ashley Judd), a single mother with two kids, a six or seven year old daughter, and punk 12-year-old named Randy. [caption id="attachment_69867" align="alignright" width="317" caption=""Hey, maybe this fairy thing isn't so bad after all!""][/caption] Randy doesn’t like her mom dating Derek, he’s figures Derek’s no different than any of mom’s other boyfriends. Kids his age tend not to like their mom’s boyfriends, but this reference to the single mom’s mysterious number of former boyfriends seems a little out of place in a movie so clearly meant for kids younger than Randy. But no matter. Derek’s main belief in life is that dreams lead to disappointment, and so believing in things like the tooth fairy or your own ability to be successful later in life will only result in failure or disappointment, and so the best thing to do is to stop dreaming and believing now. For this crime of “disseminating disbelief,” Derek is abducted into Fairyland and assigned by none other than Julie Andrews to two weeks or tooth fairy duty. A gigantically tall British comedian (Stephen Merchant, 6’7”) named Tracy, who has been saddled with the lifelong disappointment of never being able to be a “winged fairy,” is assigned to be Derek’s trainer, while Billy Crystal reprises his role from The Princess Bride and introduces to Derek all the cool products like shrinking potions and memory powders and whatnot. Well, Crystal reprises the costume from The Princess Bride, anyway. That’s enough for me. So clearly there isn’t much in The Tooth Fairy to make your predictability radar quiet down for a little while. It’s not hard to guess that Derek’s forced work as a tooth fairy will cause him to re-evaluate his thoughts on believing, but it definitely is surprisingly enjoyable. There are lots of cheesy and goofy scenes, but even the really cheeseball moments, while predictable, aren’t at all bad. There are, however, plenty of bad blue screens, particularly during the shrunken scenes where Derek is 6 inches tall. [caption id="attachment_69869" align="alignright" width="342" caption="Tooth Fairy duty waits for no hockey game."][/caption] It doesn’t seem like a lot of progress has been made in the shrinking department since Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which at least put a lot more effort into it than The Tooth Fairy does. But despite all of these shortcomings, I think this is the best of the bad movies in theaters right now. It’s light-hearted and enjoyable, and there are no forehead-slapping moments to be found anywhere, while in, for example, Leap Year or The Spy Next Door, there was almost nothing else. There is, however, no real reason to pay $10 to see it in the theater. As was pointed out in Hollywire’s Then and Now article, ticket prices are nothing to laugh about these days. But once The Tooth Fairy comes out on DVD, I'm gonna go out on a limb and recommend it. The Bean Meter