Tooth Fairy

The Toothy Fairy is a baffling film. It's not something that can be enjoyed by all ages. Half of it can be enjoyed by children while the other half can be enjoyed by adults, meaning that both groups are going to be bored to tears half of the time.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson stars as popular hockey player Derek "The Tooth Fairy" Thompson. His nickname comes from slamming into opponents so forcefully that it knocks teeth loose. We can assume that he does this quite a bit, at least enough to earn a nickname that revolves around it. Why he's still allowed to play hockey, I have no idea.

When Derek tells his girlfriend's daughter that there is no tooth fairy, he receives a bit of cruel and unusual punishment: he must become a tooth fairy himself. It's not a terrible premise, especially for something directed at kids, but its creativity is wasted. Most of the film falls victim to standard family movie clichés that are, at this point, painful to watch. 

Derek is a jerk. He obviously cares about his girlfriend, but not as much as he cares about having a girlfriend. He's nice to her daughter, but we suspect he's just trying to stay on her mother's good side. Her son hates Derek and the feeling seems to be mutual.

Then Derek undergoes a change brought about by miraculous circumstances and changes his attitude. Have you seen this story before? Of course you have. What's even worse is that his attitude throughout the movie is completely inconsistent, almost as if the writer had all of the character arc clichés written on index cards and then shuffled them about, resulting in them being displayed out of order.

To elaborate on what I opened this review with, all of the comedy that's aimed towards kids cannot be enjoyed on a higher level. When Derek uses his tooth fairy magic to sabotage his hockey rival, kids will laugh, adults will sigh. When Billy Crystal explains how he uses the shrinking paste or Stephen Merchant repeatedly takes subtle jabs at Derek, adults will laugh and kids will stare mindlessly as the jokes go over their heads.

The goal when making a family film is to create an experience that's enjoyable for kids on one level and for adults on another level. What they did here is break them up so you have moments that are distinctly for kids and then moments that are distinctly for adults. There's enough to satisfy children, but adults, not so much.

Stephen Merchant, with the help of Billy Crystal, saves the movie from being completely torturous for adults. His scenes are legitimately funny and well-written. Billy Crystal is only on screen for a handful of minutes, but he's funny too, making you long for more of him. The strange thing is that these aren't cases of funny actors making the most of what little they have, they're actually given good material to work with. Where this good material is for the other parts of the movie, that's a mystery.

You might think that since I said half of this movie was enjoyable, it deserves a smack-in-the-middle five out of ten. I disagree. Half of the movie is enjoyable, but the other half is awful, which makes for an undesirable whole.

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