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The concept behind ScreenStar and its mother ship, PopStar, is to celebrate all things celebrity, but sometimes things come along from Hollywood that put us to the challenge. One such thing is Tooth Fairy (2010). Look, the world could use a good family film, no question. In times like these, a laugh is a nice thing and a film the whole family can see, well, that's priceless. But, really, everything about Tooth Fairy -- which will open nationwide on January 22 -- sounds misconceived.
Let's start at the top. Dwayne Johnson as the tooth fairy? This was the man who was supposed to be our next great action star. He's a charming guy, on screen and off, but Dwayne Johnson as the Tooth Fairy? Next, Dwayne Johnson in wings? Just the posters makes us twinge, while the trailer, eesh, that makes us squirm. Now, Johnson's career survived intact after he sported a tutu in The Game Plan (2007), and that family film, while predictable as all get-out, had its sappy charms and proved to be a modest hit. But we'll say it again: Dwayne Johnson as the Tooth Fairy, in wings? Please stop.
Next, we'd like to put some faith in the screenwriters, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. After all, they wrote the memorable Splash (1984), Parenthood (1989), City Slickers (1991), A League of Their Own (1992), and Robots (2005), but they're also responsible for the forgettable Vibes (1988), Greedy (1994), and Father's Day (1997). Actually, Ganz and Mandel share credit on Tooth Fairy with several other writers, never a good sign. And while Michael Lembeck is a very talented television director, the pinnacle of his film work is The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006).
Okay, so what is Tooth Fairy about? You've probably figured that out by now, at least in broad strokes. The specifics are as follows: Johnson plays Derek Thompson, a minor-league hockey player nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" thanks to his reputation for knocking the teeth out of his opponents' mounths on the ice. He tells a little girl, Tess (Destiny Whitlock) -- who happens to be the daughter of his girlfriend (Ashley Judd) -- that the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist. Poof, he's off to Fairy Land. There, he's sentenced to a punishment that requires him to spend a couple of weeks in the wings and tutu -- again, with the tutu!! -- as the real Tooth Fairy. While answering to his boss, the tough head fairy Lily (Julie Andrews), Derek begins to recall that he too once had dreams as a kid. Will he learn his lesson and change? Co-stars include Stephen Merchant as a fairy wannabe who teaches Derek the rules of fairydom and Ryan Sheckler as Derek's nemesis, a talented young hockey player on the verge of nudging him off the ice for good. And be on the lookout for an extended cameo by Billy Crystal.
You can just envision the puns now: "So painful, it's like a bad cavity;" "You won't want to handle the Tooth;" "This Tooth has no bite;" "There's not enough laughing gas in the world to make audiences laugh at Tooth Fairy;" "Dwayne Johnson has hit Rock bottom," and so on. We don't like to be cynical and negative; it's not in our blood -- or our mission statement. And we hate to be doing the preview equivalent of telling a little kid that there's no Tooth Fairy. So let's end this on a positive note: Hopefully, we're dead wrong. We once heard about a dentist informing a patient that he needed an extensive root canal, then suddenly realizing he'd been looking at the next patient's chart. So, maybe, just maybe Tooth Fairy is the family-friendly, Johnson-in-wings, wish fulfillment fantasy we've all been waiting for.
