Tooth: Uma Fada Diferente

Yesterday I went to see this film, mainly because last year I had started writing a children's book about a tooth fairy world and wondered how it could have turned out. I am a 23 year old, but enjoy children's films too, and after seeing Harry Enfield on This Morning suggesting that it had a lot of gags for adults too, I was looking forward to it.

How wrong could I be! It had a good cast, but had no real story, appeared to be dull and dreary, couldn't decided which country it was set in (US Dollars and British pennies apparently making up the currency), couldn't decide which decade it was shot in and had no likable characters whatsoever.

Please do go and make up your own mind, I want other people to see it just to know how much you wish it was over.

I am going to leave it at that before my blood pressure shoots up again!

The real question about this film, is how it ever got to be made. The narrative line is disjointed and confusing, after all, why is a talking rabbit driving a white van, why does the mum, Sally Philips, have an American accent, albeit as bad an American accent as Dick Van Dyke's cockney one, yet the husband is clearly English, though for no good reason, a spaced out wide boy/failed pop star. As for the kids - it's not quite clear where they were brought up, except possibly somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Then what is the strange animal in the cage and why is Harry Enfield even in the film. There's Richard E.Grant, once again compensating for an apparent lack of direction by extravagantly overplaying an otherwise formless character - and Jerry Hall, barely acting any more than she did as Lady Jagger - the pair apparently delivering a formidable fusillade of the golf balls with machine gun rapidity and accuracy - thus confounding the villains for all of two minutes. And what about Vinny Jones, as the tooth fury - one moment like the villain who screwed Gazza's nuts, and the next a mewling soft touch for the none too cute juvenile leads.

This dreadful farrago must have cost millions of pounds to make - I don't recall it making any impression on initial release, let alone making it out on to general release - and it should not have been hard to ascertain the total lack of potential at the script stage and saved everyone a lot of money, and spared the rest of us an excruciatingly awful film.

This kind of kids film should be left to Hollywood. They know how to do them properly, and are willing to cough up an adequate budget.

Tooth has been made on a shoestring and it shows. Its been shot on what appears to be an abandoned airfield in Essex using whatever was left lying around as props; and while its quite clearly set in England, the cast of British actors are forced to adopt feeble American accents and pretend the whole farrago's taking place in some nameless US city.

I assume the producers imagine this will make it saleable to the Americans.

The story's about a Tooth Fairy called Tooth and her quest to bring back the magic that the fairies have lost, but the writers clearly aren't convinced that's a strong enough storyline because they've chucked Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny into the mix to create a confusing, patchwork plot that's neither rewarding nor entertaining.

Harry Enfield's the star of this mess, and he's about as funny as Steve Martin is these days.

I thought kids films of this quality vanished with Screen Test and The Childrens Film Foundation - clearly I was wrong.

Remembering my own childhood test for the existence of the Tooth Fairy by secretly placing an old baby tooth under my pillow and NOT finding it replaced by money in the morning, I hope the title of this new film "Tooth" does not stop dentist-phobes from taking themselves and their children to see this irreverent and very funny film about the battle between good and evil, social class, and industrial efficiency at the interface of the Real World and the Magic World. These fairies are not Tinkerbell or Lang's fairies in pastel tones. These fairies--such as Fat, Bitter, Stutter, Chef, Professor, and Tango Fairy--have more in common with Willy Wonka, without the meanness. These are not the fairies at the bottom of the garden but ones passing in the Real World who must rediscover their magical purposes. In this story, the Age of Man is resisted by the Age of Magic, successfully at least for a while with the help of ordinary human heroes: children and their parents. The look of the film is lush and the well-done characters are comic commentaries on modern times (e.g, Mrs. Claus using a shiny motorized scooter for the aged and infirm).

...this film is truly, truly awful.

I cannot believe how fragmented and totally lacking in humour this film was.

Released in the UK to coincide with the half-term school holiday and therefore guaranteed a pretty full house, there were only two people who I heard laugh out loud in the entire film. I don't think either of them were children.

Honestly, don't waste your time with this one...