Review by Doug Cooper
Stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Ashley Judd, Stephen Merchant, Julie Andrews,
Ryan Sheckler, Billy Crystal, Chase Ellison, Seth MacFarlane | Written by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel
UK certification PG | UK RRP £28.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 100 minutes | Directed by Michael Lembeck
Dwayne Johnson amazingly manages to keep his dignity intact in this kids comedy. At one stage he sports a pink dress with requisite wings and still manages to avoid overt embarrassment. His normal attire when sporting tooth fairy apparel is a blue number that makes him look as if he's been doing pantomime in Southport. He's given various assignations to go to people's homes and enter the bedrooms of the little children to steal their respective teeth that are under their pillows – all as a penance because he is a disbeliever of dreams. He is taught that there is a place for wonderment in his life.
His real job, however, is as an over-the-hill ice hockey player, a former star on the court who has seen better times. His girlfriend, Carly (Judd), has two young children that he wants to bond with. The infant daughter is immediately accepting of him but the truculent son makes life hard for poor Dwayne. The boy has fine guitar skills and wants to enter a music competition and Dwayne does his best to encourage him. But his tooth fairy job is plaguing his life at all the wrong moments. Every evening he receives a text giving him an address of where he has to go in order to retrieve said teeth. His coach is awkward Merchant, complete with country accent, who's in charge of making him do the job correctly, aided with devices that make him invisible or shrink him down to miniscule size so that he can slide under doors.
It all turns out well by the end of course, with a healthy dose of sappy sentimentality thrown in for good measure. But even so, for a children's movie, Tooth Fairy is surprisingly tolerable. It has a smattering of laughs and Johnson is a very agreeable lead. He has a relaxed, easygoing presence and carries the silly shenanigans with a certain grace. Merchant provides the most amusement as his bumbling cohort, envious of all those workers that have wings, while a portly looking Julie Andrews displays the right tone of class and sophistication as the head of the fantasy institution. An aged Billy Crystal looks as if he's also put on weight, cropping up in a couple of scenes as the gadget masternind for the tooth fairies. And keep your eyes peeled for al ann-too-brief cameo from Family Guy supremo Seth MacFarlane as a dodgy dealer of fairy goods.
It's a smoothly done confection, brightly made and likeable enough to keep mean spirited criticism at bay. Not bad at all.
EXTRAS ★★★★ A top-flight package, particlarly for a kids' film: there's an introduction to the film by director Lembeck; an audio commentary by director Lembeck; the interactive featurette Tooth Fairy training Centre (20 minutes); Fairyoke, a singalong with Johnson and Merchant to Wind Beneath My Wings; a two-and-a-half minute gag reel; half a dozen deleted and extended scenes; eight behind-the-scenes featurettes; and the theatrical trailer. PLUS a DVD copy of the film, as well as a digital copy for a laptop, iPod or other device. Nice.