Written by Pirata Hermosa
Derek Thompson (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) was once a major league hockey player, but only briefly before a shoulder injury sent him back to the minors for recuperation. After nine years he finds himself more of a sideshow as he has been unable to get back into the NHL and instead is known as “The Tooth Fairy” for his rough play and his uncanny ability to knock out the teeth of his opponents.
While Derek revels in the small amount of fame that his violent play has awarded him, he is truly an unhappy person. He no longer believes that he will make it back into the pros and takes it out on everyone: his opponents, his fans, and even on his girlfriend Carly (Ashley Judd) and her two kids, Randy (Chase Ellison) and Tess (Destiny Whitlock).
His poor behavior begins to affect his relationship with Carly when Tess looses a tooth and he almost tells her that there is no tooth fairy. But after he swipes her tooth-fairy money from under her pillow for his poker game, he finds himself in serious trouble, not only with his girlfriend but from the tooth fairies that send him a summons for “disseminating disbelief” and being a “murderer of dreams”.
After scoffing at the summons and heading back to sleep, Derek discovers that it wasn’t a joke as he finds himself dressed as a fairy and transported to the tooth-fairy headquarters. As punishment for his crimes, he is sentenced to two weeks of tooth-fairy duty and is paired with Tracy (Stephen Merchant) who will supervise his training. While the trainer and student dislike one another from the moment they meet, they must both learn to work together so Derek can complete his work and perhaps become a better human being.
Before watching this film I expected to see just another silly kids’ film where they take a strong powerful man and dress him in ridiculous clothes just for the cheap laughs. While there is a little bit of that in the film, there is a lot more than just silly tricks. It is definitely a film catering to children, but there are some good lessons that are taught about following your dreams, and surprisingly enough you can even find some good acting.
It’s obvious that Dwayne Johnson needs a lot more training in his acting career, but the performances by Billy Crystal as Jerry the crazy gadget maker and Julie Andrews as Lily the head of the Tooth Fairies make the film worth watching.
There are three discs in the pack. The first is the Blu-ray version, the second the regular DVD format, and the last is a digital version for download to your computer.
The Blu-ray is shot in a widescreen 1.85:1 ratio, with 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Both the audio and video are excellent and are most prevalent during the hockey scenes. You can literally see each sliver of ice flying off the skates as they fly around the rink. And when the crowd screams, you feel as if you are surrounded by thousands of fans but yet can actually pick out individual voices as well.
The Blu-ray contains some of the basic features that most discs contain: audio commentary by the director, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes look, and a gag reel. But I did find three things worth mentioning above all others.
“Tooth Fairy Training Center” - Basically this is an exercise class for children that is led by a fairy who has them do exercises that simulate some of the activities one might need to work on in order to become a tooth fairy, such as running from cats, leaping and flying, and throwing fairy dust. This might be boring for adults as they translate into jumping jacks, running in place, and leg lifts, but it’s a great idea to get kids interested and motivated to exercise.
“Fairyoke” - Derek and Tracy sing a duet to the song "Wind Beneath my Wing" while the words scroll along the bottom of the screen so you can follow along. Actually, singing may be giving them too much credit. They butcher the song badly. And it’s so bad that it is actually funny.
“Deleted Scenes” - There is one scene that should have been left in the film that was cut out. Towards the beginning of the film, a young boy who wants to some day be a professional hockey player comes up to meet his hero, Derek. And Derek destroys the kid’s confidence and crushes his dream. In the deleted scene, Derek stumbles onto the boy’s house as the tooth fairy and sees the kid’s room trashed, hockey posters ripped down, sticks broken, etc. Derek actually feels regret and leaves the boy a note to try and make amends. This was a mistake to cut this out of the film and should have been put in somewhere.
While primarily a film for kids, most adults will find Tooth Fairy entertaining enough to watch with them. And with the good, moral messages and the mini-fitness feature, it’s a fun and entertaining film that would be worth adding to your collection.
Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Tooth Fairy (2010) on Blogcritics.
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