FILM REVIEW Tooth Fairy

Tooth is, it’s not that funny


Cinema
Daniel Carey

A MAN I used to work with attended a wedding in a rural area some years ago. He wasn’t staying at the hotel where the reception was taking place; instead his digs for the night was a nearby B&B. Only it wasn’t that nearby.
Overcome by tiredness and/or drink, our man finally walked up a driveway, opened the front door and clambered into bed. A few short hours later, he was woken by the sound of screaming, and opened his eyes to find a woman he had never seen standing over him. It turns out he was in the wrong house. Given 30 seconds to leave before the police were called, he made a quick exit. Did I mention he’s 6’5”?
The sight of a large, strange man in a neighbouring bedroom is something most of us haven’t seen in our houses since college. But it is a terror revisited on more than one occasion in ‘Tooth Fairy’, with enormous Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as ‘The Rock’ from his time as a professional wrestler) in the title role.
Unfortunately for my friend the wedding guest, he didn’t have amnesia dust – one of the many weapons in a tooth fairy’s locker, according to the new feature from Michael Lembeck. There’s also invisibility gel, shrinking paste, dog-bark mints and ‘cat-away’ (to deter over-inquisitive moggies), all overseen by Billy Crystal, the fairy answer to James Bond’s Q. It’s when these hiding devices are deployed that ‘Tooth Fairy’ is at its best.
When the film opens, Derek Thompson (Johnson) is a hockey player who is a brute enforcer.
Acting as a protector for more skilful players, Johnson has earned the nickname ‘The Tooth Fairy’ through his policy of bashing into opposing players with such force that they’re liable to lose a molar or incisor. “You can’t handle the tooth,” he screams, basking in the adulation of the crowd who revel in his antics.
But Johnson is a long way from the big leagues, and has become a wearisome cynic, telling an eight-year-old who dreams of playing pro’ hockey to ‘lower your expectations’. Baby-sitting for his girlfriend Carly (Ashley Judd), he almost tells her six-year-old child that there’s no such thing as the tooth fairy.
His penchant for killing the dreams of others is about to catch up with him, however.
Summoned to fairyland, he finds himself given a two-week sentence as a children’s tooth fairy, working under Tracy (Stephen Merchant, who somehow manages to retain his dignity) and the fairy godmother (Julie Andrews). He sprouts wings at inopportune times (when cuddling with Carly, while in the bathroom, during an ice hockey game), prompting some decent visual gags. He learns a lot about himself, bonds with his girlfriend’s two kids and realises the importance of having dreams to aim for. You know how these things go.
Johnson is a charming and likeable lead, and no one smiles quite like ‘The Rock’. But he’s never got material that matches his charisma, and ‘Tooth Fairy’ hasn’t changed that.
The character is a curious mix of nice and nasty, and is one some viewers may have difficulty rooting for.
And too often, ‘Tooth Fairy’ is just not near funny enough. Puns abound – “I want the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth” precedes a reference to ‘fairy krishnas’.
Perhaps the best line of a lame script comes when Tracy fires a giant amnesia gun at an ice hockey crowd, muttering: “Good luck finding your cars.”
Tooth is, it could have been a whole lot better.

Rating 4 out of 10