The Tooth Fairy 1 & The Tooth Fairy 2

It is now time to cover another gag gift from my movie backlog box. For newer readers to the blog, my friend Matt and I have a tradition of gag gifting each other bad movies for the holidays, which we then have good times ripping apart together. Last year I covered Bounty Hunters, a Canadian indy-action flick starring former WWE Diva Trish Stratus in the lead. It is about as good as that description sounds. Last weekend Matt and I met up with another friend for one of our customary bad movie nights, where one of the films of the night was a Matt gag gift in the form of The Rock’s vehicle for mainstream family fun, 2010’s The Tooth Fairy (trailer).

The Rock was in one pickle of a situation when this movie hit theaters in 2010. Hollywood was initially bragging him up to be the next big action star after The Rock’s big breakout success in 2002’s The Scorpion King, but The Rock never reached that level of fame in his following action films. He found mild degrees of success with 2003’s The Rundown and 2004’s Walking Tall. Unfortunately for Rock, 2005’s Doom flopped hard. Rock needed to mix it up, and after seeing how Vin Diesel found success in 2005’s family friendly hit, The Pacifier, The Rock realized he needed to branch out to expose himself to a wider audience. So in 2007 he unleashed his debut family film, The Gameplan to mammoth box office success to a $147.8 million box office on a $22 million budget. After that film did gangbusters, Hollywood called again for another family fun follow-up, and thus we were bestowed with The Tooth Fairy.

The Rock and director Michael Lembeck did not reinvent the wheel and played the kids movie formula by-the-book. That said this was still quite painful to endure. Watching this with a couple friends and poking fun at it was the only way to enjoy this. If you do not remember the plot for this big family hit, The Rock stars as Derek, a former big time hockey player now stuck in the minor leagues. He is also struggling to be a stepfather figure to his girlfriend Carly (Ashley Judd). Derek accidentally spoils the tooth fairy myth to one of Carly’s children, and the mythical tooth fairies track Derek down and punish him with tooth fairy duty in order to restore faith in the tooth fairies.

The film is full of kid friendly humor, with The Rock going out of his way to make over-the-top faces while decked out in his colorful tutu outfit to appeal to them directly. Stephen Merchant portrays Derek’s tooth fairy case worker, Tracy. My friends were surprised to see him in a children’s film, and we speculated he must have stumbled upon hard times in 2010 or lost a bet with Ricky Gervais to appear in this. There is not really a whole lot to say about this film as it is as paint-by-numbers as it gets. Derek is a cocky sports star who must learn the error of his ways, and by being punished as a tooth fairy he finds newfound respect for children and his family. The kid jokes were rather unbearable and full of groan-inducing puns, but super young kids will most likely enjoy it and not know any better. I suggest only forcing your children to watch this if they screw up as punishment when they could be enjoying other classics instead.

I wish this blog was done, but unfortunately Matt gifted me the ultimate DVD in a 2-pack special packaged with 2012’s direct-to-video sequel, The Tooth Fairy 2 (trailer). What better fit for a direct-to-video lead then no other than Larry the Cable Guy? I remember seeing commercials for this and instantly groaned and took solace in that I would most likely ignore this film, but I guess the joke is on me. Nobody from the original cast returned for the sequel, but the plot is identical. Larry is playing Larry Guthrie, who won a bowling contest at the beginning of the film at the expense of losing his girlfriend Brooke (Erin Beute). He tries to win her over later on in the film, but accidentally spoils the tooth fairy myth to a child in the process, and thus Larry must don the tutu outfit for his crime against humanity.

I went into the second film with much lower expectations since it starred Larry the Cable Guy, and ended up loathing it marginally lesser so as a result. Larry does not get quite as over-the-top with the cooky faces like The Rock did, but I think it is because he is incapable of doing so. The filmmakers made sure to make up for it though with added special effects such as Larry farting out glitter and sparkles in one scene in a stealthy attempt at nabbing a tooth. Make no mistake, this is still as dreadful to take in as the first film and is filled with just as many corny jokes and cheap puns for easy laughs for the kiddos.

Each DVD in this two pack had a few extra features to take in, but to be honest with you I only watched a couple as background noise while tending to other errands around the house. Trust me, you do not want to hear my thoughts on a Rock sing-a-along extra feature and very generic behind-the-scenes pieces with Larry the Cable Guy on how thrilled he and the rest of the cast was to work on the sequel. You win again Matt! This gag gift was absolute torture to indulge! For parents out there throw either The Tooth Fairy or The Tooth Fairy 2 in for your kids if they are under five to distract them for a couple hours around the holidays, or use it to torture them if they are in their early teenage years and you really want to punish the runts for screwing up!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs


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12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)