Tooth Fairy is a 2010 family comedy starring Dwayne Johnson and directed by Michael Lembeck. Derek Thompson (Johnson), a hard-charging minor league hockey player whose nickname comes from his habit of separating opposing players from their teeth. When he discourages a youngster's hopes, steals a dollar from his girlfriend Carly's (Ashley Judd) six-year-old daughter Tess (Destiny Whitlock) that had been left for her lost tooth, and nearly tells her the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist, he is kicked out and sent home. That night, Derek receives a magical summons under his pillow. He grows wings and is transported to the realm of tooth fairies. He meets his caseworker, Tracy (Stephen Merchant) and the head fairy, Lily (Julie Andrews), and he's sentenced to one week's hard labor as a real tooth fairy, complete with the requisite tutu, wings and magic wand. At first, Derek "can't handle the tooth", bumbling and stumbling as he tries to furtively wing his way through strangers' homes, doing what tooth fairies do. But as Derek slowly adapts to his new position, he begins to rediscover his own forgotten dreams.
This movie provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Billy Crystal gets some snacks for the Fairy Queen, saying, "I got you a few of your favourite things."
- Advertised Extra: Despite having only one scene as a fairy who sells Derek illegal gadgets, Seth MacFarlane is given top billing above Julie Andrews.
- Bad Mood as an Excuse: When Carly rightfully chastises Derek for yelling at her son so admonishingly, he defends himself by saying that he had a bad day. She does not find that to be a good excuse for his behavior and breaks up with him out of disappointment. She's right, that's no excuse to take it out on someone else and shatter their dreams.Derek: I had a bad day.Carly: You had a bad day?Derek: Yeah, I had a bad day, ok?Carly: No, no, that is not okay. You are never gonna speak to my children again. We are done.
- Break the Haughty: This is the premise of the movie is Derek having to deal with his punishment for what he does to people's hopes and dreams.
- Brick Joke: When Carly tells Derek that he can't say "What if?". By the film's end, Derek uses the same words that Carly says he never uses, asking her happily "What if we got married? I said 'what if'?". She accepts.
- Brutal Honesty: Derek shows this toward the youngster's hopes, and he pays the price for it. We hope you are proud of yourself, Derek, for all your dream killing.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: Fairies have dusty offices, too.
- Curse Cut Short: After waiting all night for a kid to fall asleep, Derek is informed that his assignment is canceled. He responds with "Bull", but the scene then cuts to Carly honking her horn.
- Disappointed in You: Carly and Tracy were not angry, but disappointed in Derek when they call him out for his unsympathetic attitude towards others with all his dream shattering (shown in What the Hell, Hero? below).
- DIY Dentistry: In the sequel, a youngster removes her last baby tooth by tying string to her loose tooth and closing the door on the camera, and a popping sound is heard followed by her saying "Ow".
- Fatal Flaw: Derek's biggest flaw is basing everything on a "What if".
- Get Out!: Derek tells Tracy this after Tracy gives him a minor calling out for shattering people's dreams one time too many and his unsympathetic attitude.
- Hurricane of Puns: And how. Most notably, right before Derek's first assignment.
- Jerkass: Derek's coach.
- Kick the Dog: Several. It even has a subversion that turns into a Pet the Dog.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia:
- One of the tooth fairy tools mentioned below does this. Derek uses this to try out one explanation after another to his girlfriend.
- They also perform this on Derek at the end. Which makes you wonder what was the point of teaching him to be a better person, since he no longer remembers anything that prompted this change?
- Masquerade: The tooth fairies do whatever they can to hide traces of their existence. However, apparently the tooth fairies need people to believe in them if they want to keep on existing, so it makes one wonder why they don't reveal themselves to the world.
- Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: There's one scene where Derek threatens to introduce Tracy to "the Hammer Brothers: Sledge and Jack!"
- Memory Wipe Exploitation: Derek repeatedly uses amnesia dust on his girlfriend so he can insult her and her kids and get away with it. A man watches as this is going on, wishing he had some of that stuff.
- Mundane Utility: Derek starts misusing his tooth fairy tools in due time.
- Slo-Mo Big Air: During Derek's first assignment, mentioned above. Those fingerboards are remarkably slick.
- Tears of Joy: Carly tears up and cries happily when Derek proposes to her in the end after her son Randy's successful musical performance.
- That Came Out Wrong: While returning home from his first assignment, Derek's still under the effects of the Shrinking Paste. Carly wants him to join her on the couch, but he, having already lied to her about not feeling well, says "I'll call you when I'm bigger....uh, I mean better". Cue the confused look on Carly's face.
- That Poor Cat: When Derek tries to get out from the house, he ran into an angry growling cat. The cat goes after Derek while trying to get out of the house. When Derek gets close to the door flap, he uses an airhorn, and the cat jumps up like crazy, then goes off.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Both Carly and Tracey gives minor ones to Derek when they became disappointed in him for his dream shattering reputation.
- Resized Vocals: When Derek uses shrinking gel for the first time to help retrieve a child's loose tooth undetected, his voice gets very high pitched as he shrinks down to size.
- The Stinger: Lily and Jerry get to watch Derek's latest game. It is also implied that they are a married couple which was hinted earlier.
- Toilet Teleportation: Derek Thompson uses shrinking paste to shrink himself down and then flushed himself down the toilet in order to escape mockery from his teammates while in the locker room.Tracy: Why're you all wet?
Derek: Shut up! - Tooth Fairy: Derek Thompson becomes an actual tooth fairy as a punishment after he told his girlfriend's daughter that the tooth fairy doesn't exist.
- Training Montage: Probably the one good thing about this movie, this is done as an amazing threefer, with Derek training Carly's son Randy in electric blues guitar, interspersed with Derek training Tracy in tooth fairy field work, to Derek himself training to be a hockey forward again.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- The entire plot stems from Derek callously informing a young fan that he has no chance of becoming a professional athlete. While he may have had a point, he was needlessly cruel about it.
- A disappointed Carly calls Derek out when he vents his frustration from costing his team an important hockey match by brutally destroying Randy's dreams of becoming a famous rockstar one day. The kid is fourteen years old and is reduced to tears from Derek's words. In the process, Carly ends her relationship with him, not before saying that his biggest flaws are his inability to be optimistic and that he can't say "What If".Carly: You know what your problem is, Derek? You can't say what if. And you never will.
- Tracy gives a minor one to Derek after he lost everything, saying that he hurts himself more than others with his reputation of shattering people's dreams. In response, Derek orders him to get out of his house.Tracy: You know what's really sad? The person you hurt the most with all your dream killing is not Randy, or Carly, or even me. It's you.
- Women Are Wiser: Carly is the most nicest and reasonable character in this film. She believes in helping her kids keep their innocence and imagination and calls out Derek for his dream-crushing reputation.
