Reduced to playing minor league ice hockey after an accident, Derek Thompson - played by Dwayne Johnson - earns the nickname of Tooth Fairy for his habit of knocking out opponents' teeth. But when he rubbishes the dreams of a young hopeful and then tells his girlfriend's little daughter that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, he is sentenced to two weeks working as a tooth fairy by the top fairy, Lily - Julie Andrews. His caseworker is Tracy, Stephen Merchant (from The Office) and mayhem predictably ensues.Tooth Fairy has enough slapstick humour to amuse younger children but more sophisticated film viewers will not be overly impressed. The plot is obvious (as it the happy ending) and the acting doesn't really compensate for this – apart from a lovely scene when Thompson has shrunk in size and encounters a cat. The cat was brilliant!
The problem with Tooth Fairy is that we've seen it all before including echoes of About A Boy and Love Actually in the final talent contest scene, and Q from the Bond films dishing out magical potions and gadgets in fairyland.
But as I said earlier, if your children haven't seen a lot of movies, they'll probably enjoy Tooth Fairy. A shame for Julie Andrews whose earlier iconic films are almost required viewing!
Tooth Fairy [DVD]
and Tooth Fairy [Blu-ray]
are available from Amazon.