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Tooth Fairy

Dwayne Johnson, Ashley Judd, Julie Andrews

Dwayne Johnson looked like he had been born under a lucky star, seemingly always at the right place at the right time. The grandson of pro wrestler “High Chief” Peter Maivia and son of “Soulman” Rocky Johnson, half Samoan and half African-American, he was tall and muscular like his father and possessed an exotic looks, like Hollywood craved a decade ago. He won a national championship in football as a defensive tackle under Dennis Erickson at the University of Miami in 1991. Although an injury cost him any hope of a NFL career, he tried to continue his career in the Canadian Football League but was cut two months into the season by the Calgary Stampeders. Due to his family’s connections to Vince McMahon’s WWF (now WWE) wrestling organization, Johnson, who had wrestled with his cousins and been around the business, was seen as a natural and quickly signed.

Now many young wrestlers have to spend years working their way up the ranks, but when Johnson entered the organization there was a huge hole in the upper ranks as many of the mainstays had gone over to the rival WCW. Seeing him as the face of the WWF for years to come, McMahon gave him the name Rocky Maivia and pushed him to the moon. At first the fans rejected him, but instead of deeming him a failure, McMahon continued to promote him and make him the centerpiece of the company. Vince’s faith paid off and the WWF enjoyed a level of popularity never seen before or since. Pro wrestling was hip and, now calling himself “the Rock,” Dwayne Johnson was right at the center of it.

In an earlier era, pro wrestlers did not like to admit their sport was phony. McMahon viewed the product more akin to entertainment and encouraged his stars to use other forums of entertainment to enhance the company and their brand names. The wrestlers were encouraged to break character in interview showing that they were much like an actor portraying a role and were given time off to pursue other media avenues. McMahon correctly saw that it was free advertising. While wrestlers from the past had tried acting, they were usually confined to playing second tier villains and B pictures. Johnson got his chance to crack this glass ceiling when he was asked to host “Saturday Night Live.” He showed a charisma and acting ability in the skits that amazed the critics and had several casting directors interested in him. From there, it looked like he had a rocket on his back. He was cast as the Scorpion King in the final moment of The Mummy Returns and while the special effects looked cheesy, Johnson looked like a star in the making.

Much like wrestling, it appeared that Johnson was at the right place at the right time to become a huge action movie star. The ‘80s action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Sylvester Stallone were growing long in the tooth. None of their replacements seemed to possess the larger than life qualities of these action heroes. Two young actors looked like the natural successors to this generation, Vin Diesel and Johnson. After starring in B-level films like The Rundown and The Scorpion King, even the likes of Roger Ebert were singing the praises of Johnson, especially when he turned his full attention to acting. With rumors of a biopic of King Kamehameha of Hawaii, live action versions of Johnny Bravo and Johnny Quest, and several comic strip characters including Captain America and Black Adam in Shazam. In a world where the international box office has taken on greater importance, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Johnson would conquer Hollywood.

Yet, something has happened on the way to the top. He has not become the superstar many predicted. Do not get me wrong. He is a star, but has not entered the Arnold/Bruce territory he should have. Several of his projects have not come to pass. Others like Doom, Walking Tall, Southland Tales and Be Cool have been major disappointments. The last few years he has either played the second banana or been the adult in movies featuring children. For an individual who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the highest salary, $5.5 million, in his first starring role, his substantive career has to be seen as a disappointment.

W.C. Fields was never a fan of sharing the screen with an animal or a child, Dwayne Johnson has made it a career of it so far. In a hello kitty, an Internet filled with babies doing cute things, and puppies sleeping, cute is in, too in, so in if I get one more email with a link to a video of a baby dancing, a monkey smelling his finger or a kitten hanging onto a shelf or curtain to remind me to “hang in there”, I am going to punch someone, but Johnson’s most successful films have been so sweet that they almost give you cavities. It seems almost mandatory that a he-man or gruff actor must do at least one film where they need be juxtaposed to kids or cute teenage girls. Arnold started the modern trend with the success of Kindergarten Cop. Vin Diesel increased the Muppet factor with The Pacifier. Tommy Lee Jones checked his dignity at the door in Man of the House. Another wrestler Hulk Hogan was Mr. Nanny. Johnson himself did a similar turn in The Game Plan in which he played he-man quarterback Joe Kingman who wakes up to find a cute, little girl on his doorstep who claims she is his daughter.

It is easy to imagine the origins of this movie. A complaint about athletes like Barry Bond, Alex Rodriquez, and Terrell Owens, men who seem self-centered, out of touch, and jaded, then an observation about how hockey player always seem to be missing a few teeth, and eureka, the origins of a story. Cast a great athlete like The Rock (even though he cannot skate worth a darn) and you got a movie. Johnson is Derek Thompson, a minor league hockey star who is a jerk to kids and has a tendency to put out his opponents teeth. He is such a baddie that he tells little Tess that there is no tooth fairy. What is his punishment? He has to become a tooth fairy for a week. My punishment was to watch this movie. The nice part about trailers is that most people do not have to serve an hour-and-a-half sentence of seeing this thing. In many ways it reminds me of the Shaggy Dog/World’s Greatest Athlete/Disney films from the 1970s. To give a serious review of this film is ridiculous. The only people who are going to be going to this movie are children to young to have quality control when it comes to taste and their parents. Critics like me can roll their eyes and hammer it to death and it does not help a parent decide whether they should take their ankle biter to it. Here is the best way to tell if this movie is something you should take junior to. If you like director Michael Lembeck’s other two efforts, The Santa Clause 2 and 3, then you will like this film. It has the same pacing, tempo, special effects, cute factor, and brain dead script. In fact if Tim Allen was 15 years younger he would probably be starring in this movie. It will make a lot of money, but it will not make Dwayne Johnson the next action/adventure big screen hero that everyone thought he would be. If that is what he wants to be, he probably needs to fire his agent and manager while there is still time. Still, maybe he is happy doing Get Smart, Return to Witch Mountain, Gridiron Gang type of films. It is easy work. Still, Dwayne Johnson seems to have been born under a lucky star. So who knows.

Verdict: A Santa Clause 2 and 3 type of film