Yes, well...I find myself having quite the thing for Dwayne Johnson. The dude can carry a movie. I follow him on Twitter and his tweets are about 2 things: grabbing life by the balls & working out. Both of which suit me fine.
Tooth Fairy sat on the table for about 2 weeks, having arrived from Netflix unexpectedly. OC and I kept saying we were gonna watch it, but it just sat there. I, for one, wanted to like it but was afraid it was gonna suck. Finally we relented...and were pleasantly surprised at just how CUTE it all was.
The biggest reason to watch the film, from my gay perspective, is Dwayne Johnson. He's funny. He's charming. He's shirtless at the very beginning. He's HOT! Dwayne Johnson's got the whitest teeth I've ever seen. I would NEVER, EVER replace Bruce Willis as the man at the top of my short list of actors who can get my ass into a chair to watch a movie, no matter how craptacular it might be, just because he's in it...BUT IF I DID REPLACE BRUCE, it would be with Dwayne Johnson. Like I said, the guy can carry a movie. Plus, in Tooth Fairy he wears this pink fairy dress for a good 20 minutes. And the fairy wings. Did I mention the wings? Precious.
Tooth Fairy also has an impressive cast: Ashley Judd, Billy Crystal, Julie Andrews (yes! Julie Andrews!). For a movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Tooth Fairy is downright gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that! Its gayness is just there and no one points to it or comments on it. It's so subtle that really the only people who will pick up on it as gay are the gays. And maybe it isn't even gay, maybe I'm projecting...have we actually come to this point of assimilation? Oh please, it's a movie about FAIRIES. It's gay. However, there is absolutely no homophobia in this film as far as I can tell, and let's face it, it does tend to crop up in these things, even if it's coded. What's refreshing about Tooth Fairy is that when Dwayne's up in Fairy Land, you see all of these moments where anyone could have just dropped in one homophobic joke after another...AND THEY DIDN'T. It's pretty cool! Dwayne Johnson's comic timing is spot on, if a little over the top at moments, but he's obviously having fun with the role and he's INTO it. He's not condescending at all, and I love that.
Another thing I really like about this movie is The Lesson: that having dreams is important, and killing the dreams of others is repulsive and evil. This movie actually goes to a pretty dark place when we realize that underneath Dwayne's happy-go-lucky minor league hockey player exterior is a bitter, angry bitch who resents the fact that he gave up on his dreams a long time ago. He's a nasty troll at a few points and you just want to knock his block off. I don't know why critical reception to the movie was so bad, really. I mean, it's a KIDS movie for heaven's sake. It obviously had a good budget, an A-list cast...what's the problem, I wonder? Yes it's lightweight, but so what? Does everything need to be heavy?
The comedy in Tooth Fairy is light but sharp, with a lot of adult humor thrown in between the slapstick bits. And by "adult" I don't mean sexual or scatty, just...adult. You'll see. It could very well have been a comedy from the 1960s starring Doris Day as Ashley Judd, Rock Hudson as Dwayne Johnson, Tony Randall as the fairy case worker who is assigned to Dwayne, and Julie Andrews as, well...Julie Andrews. Overall it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours on a weekend, and I'm pretty sure I'll watch it again because, you know...the tights; that bod; those teeth. The dude can carry a movie.
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