4 Painful Mistakes That Turned Tooth Fairy Into Dwayne Johnson’s Worst Movie

We all watched The Rock smash people through tables, so seeing him flapping around in a pink tutu as the Tooth Fairy back in 2010 was... a choice. It made money, sure. But rewatching it now, you can see why the critics took a sledgehammer to it.

The basics

'Tooth Fairy' (2010) is a fantasy comedy from director Michael Lembeck. Dwayne Johnson plays Derek Thompson, a bruiser in minor league hockey who earns the nickname 'Tooth Fairy' because he knocks opponents' teeth loose for sport. After he swipes a dollar from his girlfriend's kid and tells her the real Tooth Fairy is made up, Derek sprouts wings, gets yanked into an actual fairy bureaucracy, and is sentenced to serve real shifts picking up teeth. The gag is obvious: a 6-foot-something human tank stuffed into wings and a tutu.

On paper, the package looks solid: Ashley Judd and Julie Andrews co-star, Stephen Merchant plays Derek's painfully chipper fairy handler Tracy, and there are five credited writers (Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Joshua Sternin, Jennifer Ventimilia, Randi Mayem Singer). It was produced by Walden Media, Mayhem Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and Dune Entertainment.

Stats for the curious: runtime is 1 hour 41 minutes; budget was $48,000,000; it pulled in $112,610,386 worldwide. The reception, though, was rough: IMDb sits at 5.1/10, Rotten Tomatoes has critics at 17% and audiences at 41%. That combo makes it the lowest-rated project of Johnson's career so far, even if the box office says otherwise.

What does and doesn't work

• The concept vs. the clock
  A grumpy enforcer learning to be a better man by clocking in as an actual tooth fairy? There is a cute, short-film version of that. The feature-length version keeps circling the same jokes and story beats. At 1:41, you feel every minute because the script keeps stalling.
• The jokes are stuck in amber
  Yes, this was aimed at kids. Kids also deserve fresh jokes. Instead, we get endless slapstick: Derek bungling his magic gadgets, shrinking himself and getting chased by a cat, and more than a few groin gags. The movie also leans on the 'big tough guy in a tutu' bit like it is a limitless laugh generator. It is not.

  "You can't handle the tooth!"

  If that line makes you cackle, congratulations, you are exactly who this screenplay is written for.
• Paint-by-numbers arc, performances stuck in neutral
  The moral journey is boilerplate: jerk behaves badly, gets punished, struggles, and emerges kinder. Johnson is usually great at finding a character's charm, but here he feels boxed in by the material. Ashley Judd (as Carly) does what she can and mostly has to stand around waiting for Derek to evolve. Stephen Merchant brings some spark as Tracy, but even he is fenced in. And yeah, five writers on one movie can sometimes create that 'committee' feel. You can sense it here.
• Logic gaps and little errors that pile up
  The biggest head-scratcher: the movie says tooth fairies are real, yet we also see parents slipping cash under pillows. If fairies are doing the job, why are Mom and Dad running the payout operation? The movie never reconciles that. Then there are the small but noticeable hiccups: a tooth clearly shot as a molar gets called an incisor by the commentators, plus visible equipment, continuity blips, and shot-to-shot inconsistencies. Kids might breeze past all of that. Adults, less so.

Bottom line

'Tooth Fairy' lives in that odd zone where it is not good, but you end up watching it anyway because it is committed to its own ridiculous idea. I kind of love to hate it and hate to love it. And yes, Johnson in a tutu is forever iconic.

Seen it recently? Tell me if it plays any better for you now. If you want to revisit the chaos, you can rent or buy 'Tooth Fairy' on Prime Video.