Movie Review: The Tooth Fairy
on Aug 03 in Childrens, Fantasy, Movies, Review by Dan
Yesterday on Facebook I was harangued by a couple of so called “friends” for expressing the surprised opinion that despite my expectations going into the cinema, the movie “The Tooth Fairy” wasn’t half bad.
Theoretically these two people have a far more developed critical eye than I do. One, Neil, spent two years as director of photography on a long running UK TV drama (ok, ok, it was Emmerdale – but it still counts). The other, Chris, hosts my second favorite movie podcasts, Casta La Vista, and regularly reviews films with humour, intelligence, and an abundance of delightfully foul language.
Yet despite their apparent qualifications I still maintain that they are wrong. The Tooth Fairy fairly watchable, and even strays into “quite charming” territory at times.
I realise I’m swimming against the tide here. Neil and Chris aren’t alone in their dislike of the movie. The movies Rotten Tomatoes’ page say it has an overall approval rating of 17% amongst professional critics, and an average score of 4 out of 10. But I think that’s all rather harsh.
In case you’ve not come across the movie yet, the plot surrounds a minor league hockey player (The Rock) who ends up having to serve a week as a real life tooth fairy in punishment for telling his girlfriend’s daughter that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist. The overall theme of the film centers around the importance to hold onto your dreams and all that sort of thing.
The Rock (yeah, yeah, he calls himself Dwayne Johnson these days, but we all know he’s really called the Rock) is a very under rated actor in my opinion. He’s got a very healthy dollop of charisma and always manages to come across as more than just a musclebound lunkhead. And if you compare him to other wrestlers that tried their hand at acting then he suddenly starts looking like Oscar winning material. I mean I like The Princess Bride as much as the next man, but no one could describe Andre the Giant as anything other than wooden.
So the Rock accounts for himself pretty well in the movie. He plays the whole “Big tough guy in feminised role” shtick very well and with very little obvious discomfort (unlike Arnie who always sucked at it). As I say, I find the guy quite charming and a generally believable actor.
But the real highpoint for me in this film was Stephen Merchant. He’s a comedian that I really like, but unfortunately often find his partner Ricky Gervais a little grating. I very much liked his portrayal of the geeky and awkward tooth fairy probation worker, and found the scene where he squares up to him particularly amusing.
Other actors of note were Julie Andrews and Billy Crystal as tooth fairy equivalents to Bond’s M and Q respectively. I’ve seen a fair bit of criticism of these two veteran actors for doing this film, much of which coming from the guys over at Casta la Vista if I remember correctly, however as I say I feel it’s a bit unfair really. Crystal had a good part with some funny gags which I felt was more or less worthy of him. And Andrews is blandness personified in every film since The Sound of Music anyway, although my Midnight Movie Club co-host Lee may argue that 2001′s The Princess Diaries was actually her finest hour (the girly freak).
So in short I had no problem at all with the casting and performances in this film.
The plot? Meh, the plot was pretty by the numbers. A standard tale of initial cynicism turning to redemptive belief, a device more commonly found on your box standard Christmas movie. But I don’t think this is particularly a bad thing. This is a kids film and children thrive on the familiarity and security that well worn tropes provide.
So all in all The Tooth Fairy is a pretty enjoyable children’s film that I feel has been unfairly maligned by the critics. Sure it’s no Pixar movie, but then very few films are. I’d heard some very negative opinions of the film before walking into the cinema, and so my enjoyment of the movie may have been boosted by my initial low expectations. But it’s a film I’d happily add to my kid’s DVD library.
Rating: 
The Tooth Fairy has been out for quite a while now. We saw it at a cut price kids club showing at the local cinema. It’s released on DVD
Disclosure
We paid for our own entry (and horrifically overpriced popcorn) to watch this at the cinema. However if you buy a DVD or Blu-ray through one of the links on this post then I get a very small kickback from Amazon.
Related posts:
- Movie Review: Megamind
- Failure
- Movie Review: Tangled
- Movie Review: Thor
- Movie Review: Ramona and Beezus (2010)
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You’ve almost persuaded me to rent it.
Almost.
I’m giving it a 6 1/2. I’m not saying it’s the greatest film ever made. But it’s come in for a lot of unjustified beating and I felt I needed to defend it.
Is he still billed as “The Rock” or is he using Duane Whatsit now? I read somewhere that when he uses his old wrasslin name he has to give a percentage of his earnings to the WWE.
He’s Dwayne Whatsit, but will always be the Rock to me
The Tooth Fairy isn’t too bad, there’s something for the parents and the kids, whichever way you look at it.
For a truly horrific film I dare you to hunt down a memorial to god-awful bad acting, a missing plot, script writing apparently by a bunch of drunks after an all-nighter at the pub, editing by monkeys high on domestic cleaner and funded by the village idiot; I give you the challenge of sitting through an entire viewing of Billy Frankenstein.
Hmmm, you sell it so well, but I think I’m going to pass :)
I heartily agree with you, Dan. Watched it with my kids on DVD and was surprised that it was not entirely painfully. Merchant and Crystal’s characters were the best of the lot.
I think it benefited from my incredibly low expectations going in, but yes – it was quite charming in parts.
A kickback from Amazon! You sellout!
Actually, one of my suspended blogs has that two. No-one ever bought anything, though. Bastards. Last thing I saw was the Karate Kid remake on Monday. Which I confess that I enjoyed, possibly more than dudelet. Not least for the uncredited but inspired Michelle Yeoh cameo.
We’ve been doing Amazon kickbacks for a while over on the podcast, and haven’t made a penny. Still, you never know.
haven’t seen it so I can’t judge of course, but in my book some people judge movies in 2 categories: perfect or near perfect versus 4 or lower out of 10. There is plenty of space in between for an enjoyable movie.
Exactly. This was a 6.5 And there is nothing wrong with a 6.5 now and again
sigh……………
I know I live in wales
and arthouse cinema is a rarity
but have some standards…….
sighs again
x
Pah! to your sighs. Pah! I say!
I refuse to comment twice.
Damnit!
I concur!
You two are both lightweights! I typed every word of that post out twice so the least you could do is add your paltry comments again.
Don’t know how to copy and paste then? :p
But since you asked for it… BAM!
Consider myself called out! Haha!
The thing is, in reading what you’ve written, I can’t help but agree with you on a number of points yet still think this was a horrible film.
First up I have so much love for The Rock it’s unbelievable – he strode into acting right around the time my love for wrestling was at a lifetime high and if there was anyone who could match the musclebound physique of 80?s action stars such as Arnie and Sly and mix is with the charisma of Will Smith and Tom Cruise in the 90?s then surely it was him. Surely he was a n action star for the next millennium. Unfortunately in the ten years since he’s done very little to put himself forward anywhere and has made bad choice after bad choice – a lot of my distaste for this film comes from the fact that by now he really should be doing something better. Incidentally as I mentioned to you yesterday, his next movie Faster (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSJzNMFXRko) looks like it could finally be the role I’ve been hoping he’d get since his entry into Hollywood.
Oh actually I really liked Walking Tall and if we’d have had this conversation yesterday, that might have made it onto that “films the critics got wrong” post – if I do another one it’ll be there…
Next then is the Old Guard – again there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with Crystal or Andrews’ performances it’s just that these guys are well respected in their field and it kind of pains me to see them in something so base – especially when Crystal reputedly came out of retirement for it.
Merchant – he can just get stuffed. He’s ridiculously over the top and obnoxious throughout and although he redeems himself towards the end most of his character and jokes seem to be based on the fact that’s he’s a lanky English twit. Hardly projecting ourselfves well to the world there are we (says one bearded Englishman to another).
I understand that this film wasn’t made for the likes of me – but it doesn’t take much for my inner child to overtake my outer grown up. I’m sure however that as a family entertainment film it probably works quite nicely and at the very least instils the morals of “being nice is better than being bad” but so does the Muppets’ Christmas Carol and that’s inifintely better than this!
I’ve seen A LOT of movies so far this year and I haven’t felt more embarrassed than I did walking out of this – at least you had kids to skulk out with :p