The Tooth Fairy took my man card

The other night Mommy Mojo and I were relaxing at home.  It had been an exhausting day and we decided to rent something from our shortlist queue of movies that aren’t too objectionable for either of us.  The Tooth Fairy was on that list.

Dwayne “Can you smell what The Rock is Cookin” Johnson,  plays an almost over the hill hockey player who is infamous for knocking out other player’s teeth.  He’s dating a single mom (Ashley Judd) with two children, the younger of which is losing some teeth.  Hockey player casts doubts on the tooth fairy, has to serve time being one-while occassionally playing hockey and being a daddy role model to the Judd’s older son. 

Hilarity, romance ensue, cue the suprise casting by Seth MacFarline and Billy Crystal, fade out with a lesson learned for everybody involved.   The Rock was good for what it was, as was, Ashley Judd-who was almost unrecognizeable, did she have plastic surgery or something?  She didn’t need plastic surgery, if she had it as she was always super cute and fun to watch in any of her damsel in distress movies with Morgan Freeman.  Bottom line, The Tooth Fairy was a semi enjoyable, Lifetime movie masquerading as a vechicle for The Rock that could’ve easily been shown on any number of cable networks. 

There you go dads, I just saved you rental fee and ninety minutes.    Having said that, this was my first time seeing such a movie now that I have a child.

So lets look at the movie from the perspective of a father taking his son or daughter.  There was mild violence , but all of that was comic violence, like a knee or hockey stick to the groin.  The movie had no drug use, no foul language and all of the bad decisions had bad outcomes, while teaching lessons about never quitting and chasing your dream. 

The movie is pure PG, boys under  14 will be entertained and girls of all ages will certainly find it amusing. 

I blame Kindergarden Cop for starting this trend of tough guys going soft in family type movies.  Every tough guy has been in a crapper of a movie, but only a few have gone Kindergarden Cop.

Sylvester Stallone’s first went KC later in his career.   He was in loads of stinkers, Stop or My Mom Will Shoot and Over the Top-that absurd movie about arm westling, but nothing that really spoke directly to a younger audience, a la’ KC until Spy Kids.

Shockingly, Bruce Willishas never Kindergarden Copped.  The closest he came was with Hudson Hawk, but that was a musical/action, something that really defied categorization.  True, he also did Look Who’s Talking and The Kid, but they weren’t action movies and were geared 100% at kids.

 Arnold Swartzenegger is the name sake of the genre and starred in his share of garbage, but lots of entertaining stuff too.  However, he deserves mention again because of Last Action Hero.  That film wasn’t good for kids or adults, yet somehow managed to spawn The Forbidden Kingdom, a film so dire that it merits it’s own post.

Clint Eastwood has never Kindergarden Copped.  He never will.  The same goes for Chuck Norris, don’t even think such things.

I hope that The Expendibles can purge all memories of any major action star going Kindergarden Cop.  At least a couple times a week I watch this trailer and count down to August.  It’s certainly not kid friendly, but Mom can watch Mojo for a night.