Tooth Fairy: Can You Handle the Tooth?

Derek Thompson’s (a.k.a. Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson) hockey career is all but flushed down the toilet—until the magic Tooth Fairy Nation transforms the tyrannical and hulking hockey player into Jordyn Tutu (no offense to the NHL’s Jordin Tootoo).

I’m well aware that this flick will flounder in theaters as critics tend to categorize Tooth Fairy as another hokie hockey movie.

Granted, it’s no Miracle or Mystery Alaska, but the six-year-old girl in me enjoyed it for what it is: a fanciful and fluffy retreat from dramatic films (and all the Bruins-bashing in the media). Full of predictable puns and a requisite happy ending, Tooth Fairy offers more than a much-maligned athlete wrestling with the notion of wearing wings and waving a wand.

Mr. Tutu’s struggle to redeem himself is intertwined with sweet-tooth subplots: an adolescent and aspiring rock star, Randy (Chase Ellison) and a wingless wingman and wannabe wand-waver, Tracy, (Stephen Merchant) confront their fears.

Sprinkle into the cinematic mix a pinch of black market magic from Ziggy (Seth McFarlane) and comic relief from Team Tooth Fairy Equipment Manager Jerry (Billy Crystal), and the obvious impossibilities (the skateboarding scene, for example) are easily excused.

And if more star power is what you want, then Ashley Judd (Derek’s girlfriend Carly) and Julie Andrews (Chief Fairy Officer) provide, if not exactly Oscar-esque performances, then ample assurance that Tooth Fairy can’t be as bad as the rotten ratings suggest.

Oh, and the venue in which you take in Tooth Fairy is paramount; my wife and I watched a matinee showing in the West Boylston Cinema, where admission didn’t cost us a few wisdom teeth (tooth be told: $3.50 per person). And I must admit that the hokiness was heightened by gaggles of giggling girls dispersed throughout the theater.

Yes, I can handle the tooth.