Tooth Fairy
for mild language, some rude humor and sports action.
Reviewed by: Raphael Vera
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Better than Average |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
|
| Primary Audience: | Kids Family |
| Genre: | Family Comedy Fantasy |
| Length: | 1 hr. 41 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2010 |
| USA Release: |
January 22, 2010 (wide—3,000+ theaters) DVD: May 4, 2010 |
| Featuring |
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Derek) Ashley Judd (Carly) Stephen Merchant (Tracy) Ryan Sheckler (Mick Donnelly) Seth MacFarlane (Ziggy) Julie Andrews (Lily) See all » |
| Director |
Michael Lembeck “The Santa Clause 2,” “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause” |
| Producer | Blumhouse Productions, Foxvan Productions, Mayhem Pictures, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, Walden Media, Jason Blum, Mark Ciardi, Gordon Gray, Kevin Halloran, Jim Piddock, Emma Watts |
| Distributor |
“You can’t handle the tooth.”
Derek Thompson, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is the clutch ‘go to’ offensive forward for a professional hockey team. That is the team goes to him when they want an opposing player’s teeth knocked out and this has earned him the nickname 'The Tooth Fairy'.
However, it seems that this Tooth Fairy has long since stopped believing in dreams and is seen telling a young fan, who dreams of growing up to play in the NHL, to just 'lower his expectations'. This is the last straw for Lilly, Queen of the Fairies (Julie Andrews) who promptly orders him up to fairyland and sentences him to tooth fairy duty.
Now the biggest dream killer in the NHL needs to serve time as a tooth fairy over the next few weeks while trying to win over the reluctant teenage son of his girlfriend Carly (Ashley Judd), defend his place on the team against a better talented new kid and maybe recapture his own dream in the process.
Objectionable Content
Very minor. Language is limited to a few stern uses of “idiot” and mentions of “butt” and its English counterpart “bum”. When one of Derek’s assignments gets cancelled he starts to say bull__ when a horn interrupts the more offensive part of that expletive. The Lord’s name is not taken in vain making this a very clean film in that respect.
Violence, besides the on-ice clashes standard in hockey, is limited to his initial training as a fairy where, during flight training, he is pelted by tennis balls including the obligatory groin shot. There is also the comic peril of him during his first forays as a Tooth Fairy but none are overly threatening and clearly played for laughs.
Lessons
As the movie begins Derek is at the top of his offensive game as well as a fan favorite. Unfortunately, he has bought into accepting the loss of one’s dream and is not about to encourage anyone in theirs. The Word of God is clear on many occasions of not only the importance of encouraging each other but its purpose in strengthening us in this life:
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thes. 5:11).
“…encourage others by sound doctrine” (Titus 1:9).
“But encourage one another daily…so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:13).
Derek’s rapport with Carly’s adorable 8-year old daughter Tess (Destiny Whitlock) seems as genuine and as wholesome as his feelings for Carly. Despite having a cynical outlook his dealing with being a tooth fairy matures him and we get to watch him actually moving towards the best definition of love:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Cor. 13:6-7).
Derek finds himself at one point in jail and a fellow inmate, not knowing the nature of his problem, tells him, “You just have to surrender to a higher power.” Although a reference to Alcoholics Anonymous’ twelve step program it was still a welcome bit of truth to hear in a film.
Final Thoughts
Julie Andrews is as enchanting as ever and Billy Crystal, in an all too short supporting role, supplies Derek with his protective fairy gear and gadgets and the film with some of its sharpest wit. The director really should have used him in more scenes as the movie was lighter than expected in the laugh department.
Fans of “the Rock” expecting his portrayal of the self-assured, egotistical, cynical tough guy that discovers his heart through a series of comical misadventures won’t be disappointed. With more heart than outright comedy, The Tooth Fairy is a sweet film that promotes a single theme and it does it well: that of the importance of dreams and how you should never let them go. A moderately entertaining film it should delight primarily younger audiences and the parents that accompany them.
Violence: Mild / Profanity: None / Sex/Nudity: None
The things I found objectionable weren’t things that the majority would find objectionable. For instance, there’s a locker room scene in which a players are seen without shirts. The main character is accidentally given a female fairy costume the first time he morphs into character. There’s a scene toward the beginning of the movie in which the main character is seen gambling (money) in a poker game with friends, and again toward the end, he’s seen gambling (cheese puffs) in a poker game with a child. There’s a scene where the main character is repeatedly hit in the groin with tennis balls. There’s “violence” on the hockey rink where a player loses a tooth (which is typical of hockey, of course—nothing new there). All minor in comparison to most movies.
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
Potentially objectionable content is poker playing, the main character pretending to be a vampire with French-fry “teeth,” shirtless men in a locker room, one incidence when the main character says “Bull” (a horn muffles the next word), a “dealer” in ToothFairy Land who sells some goods (which end up being unfullfilling and land the character in jail), and some romantic content between the main character and his girlfriend. (We went to a hockey game just last night, so we did not find the hockey content objectionable. Hockey games are rough!) The potentially objectionable content was appropriate for the setting and to establish the character.
One objectionable scene is when the main character is imprisoned; the other men in jail are telling him he needs to look to a higher power and one offers him a pamphlet. The offering individual is a criminal. The scene was subtle but could have been omitted. (I’ve gone into detail about some less-than obvious content here to clarify my “Better than Average” rating.)
We found the movie to be appropriate for the family. The rating of PG is appropriate for the above reasons. The movie is not a Christian movie but it was clean, entertaining, and positive.
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 4½
I must note the movie never tries to make the Rock out to be a father figure for the son; the filmmakers just tried to bridge the rocky (pardon) gap between the estranged, isolated, angst-filled, fatherless son and mom’s new bf. Which I might add the boy warms up all too quickly to the Rock. I think that’s that Hollywood magic 'cause in real life, I wager that same kinda kid would give the new guy the stiff arm for a looooonngg time. Male bonding is hard enough as it is… genuine, mutual friendship takes a while to develop, and that’s all the movie strives to create in as far as their chemistry goes.
This film, I’ll admit, fooled me. Not its trailer, or even the poster, but the beginning. I sat in the mock theater room, bum planted comfortably in the aged, (and might I add) well-used recliner, when all of a sudden, ten minutes into the film, I thought about bailing. Vivid, brain-cell leveling flashbacks of “Old Dogs” started popping up in the far recesses of my cranium, and I fought the urge to up and run out the door to the safe and welcoming arms of sanity. No. I gutted it out. And I’m thankful I did because sure enough, “Tooth Fairy” picked up.
So my word of caution is this… don’t let the first 20 minutes saturate your opinion. Yes, the overall kiddie aesthetic and the painful acting (particularly during the initial run to fairy land) join forces together for a Captain Planet-worthy intro, but if you survive, TOOTH is worth it.
The adult humor creeps in, slowly, gradually—not in the respectable dose of balanced acts like “Flushed Away,” “Space Chimps,” or “Toy Story” et. al, but it’s there. More importantly, however, is the conflict the ex-ROCK provides by breaking “n entering into peoples” homes to collect enamel. It’s a dynamic I think previously unexplored, and even though the message of the film is familiar, the combined fantasy element with the positive masculine-journey anecdotes make “Tooth Fairy” a grand film.
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 3
I was also taken back by the opening of the movie with scenes in a men’s locker room with “The Rock” coming out shirtless with a towel on. There were other men in the room obviously in the midst of changing wearing similar amounts of clothing. I know that going to a beach, children are likely to see men wearing nothing but swim trunks, but the way the scene was presented my gut feeling is that it was blatantly intended as a sexually arousing scene obviously meant for female audiences. I guess it was thrown in to give mom’s taking their kids to the theater a little extra “bonus.” I really felt that instantly degraded the movie and wondered why this was even necessary in a kids movie. If it had been the flipside and a well endowed woman in a skimpy bikini had come out instead in a scene that was obviously meant to arouse a sexual response I’m sure there would be outcries left and right.
In the end, I can’t think of anything in this movie that really inspired me in any way. None of the characters struck me as having any real redeeming quality that made me want to emulate them, and the acting and joke scenes were pretty weak. I think if the locker room scene was removed, I could recommend this movie reluctantly to families that just wanted something to watch that wasn’t very good, but at least wasn’t full of cuss words, sexual innuendo and bathroom wall humor.
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 1½
The movie is not completely bad, yes, the bad guy does change his ways, but again it comes back to lying. All he really learns is when lying to children is good and when it is not. There is a difference between encouraging our children to achieve and glorify God with all they do, and lying to them about life and their futures.
There are also some funny scenes, however my family found the movie boring most of the time. Some other areas of concern are with the relationship the single mom has with the boyfriend. She apparently feels safe leaving him to baby sit and host a poker game while baby sitting. He later teaches the son how to play poker. There is also a scene in fairy land where a “stuff pusher” sells fairy stuff from under his coat, the scene is made to look like a drug pusher, and of course Dereck buys. It is not a horrible movie, and there is not bad language, imagine that, but it really is not a good movie either, so you won’t miss much if you don’t see it.
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 2½
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 5
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 3½
My Ratings: Moral rating: Excellent! / Moviemaking quality: 5