Dwayne Johnson: Crusher Of Dreams

So... Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

What the fuck happened to this guy?

He's built like a brick shithouse. He has charisma to spare. He has at least twice as much acting talent as the Austrian Oak in his prime. So why all the bullshit family movies?

Arnold didn't start down that path until "Kindergarten Cop" in 1990, 20 years after his debut in the immortal classic "Hercules In New York". And "Kindergarten Cop" hardly counts, because it manages to be occassionally funny, and a harder edge creeps into the film from time to time.

Same thing with "Twins". And the less said about "Junior", the better.

So let's say the 1996 cinematic travesty "Jingle All The Way", most fondly remembered by me for the scene where my 80's television late-night weekend sketch comedy hero Phil Hartman had an orgasm eating Rita Wilson's delicious homemade cookies.

Poor, poor Phil Hartman.

My point is that the delightful former "Mr. Universe" waited until he was established as an action icon before dipping his muscular toes into the kiddie pool.

But The Rock (I refuse to call The People's Champion "Dwayne Johnson") only lasted four years between his big screen debut in Peter Berg's highly entertaining "The Rundown" and the mediocre family-friendly football drama "The Game Plan", directed by "Anaconda" associate producer Andy Fickman.

So what the fuck happened to The Rock?

Well, "The Rundown" underperformed at the box office. "Walking Tall" sucked. And the ill-fated video game adaptation "Doom" was just a crippled mess.

How the fuck do you take a relatively simple action movie concept like "space marine on Mars kills many demons with BIG FUCKING GUN 9000 (patent pending)" and screw it up so badly?

I blame Rosamund Pike. Christ, she's boring.

Don't even get me started on "Southland Tales". The tragic story of Richard Kelly's "trainwreck on LSD" shit-storm of a movie is something I can't afford to get into right now, for the sake of my sanity. Suffice to say The Rock was probably the least cringe-worthy member of the "all star" cast.

Plus Eli Roth gets murdered by Jon Lovitz while taking a shit. The prick deserved it for "Cabin Fever".

Anyway, now it seems as though The Rock is doomed to headline mediocre PG-rated dreck. And it's all because audiences were too stupid to recognize "The Rundown" as a fun, action-packed thrill ride. Because of that misstep, the good action scripts never made their way to The Rock's desk, and he had to settle for shit like the "Walking Tall" remake.

Filling Joe Don Baker's shoes is a fool's quest.

"Race To Witch Mountain" (thanks again, Fickman!) was balls. "Planet 51" was digital balls.

And that brings me to "Tooth Fairy".

The family movie. Not "Darkness Falls", which was originally called "The Tooth Fairy". That's another barrel of suck, right there.

I saw "Tooth Fairy" because my mother wanted to see it. Don't ask me why she wanted to see it. I'll never really know.

I bite the bullet from time to time and see a movie I absolutely do not want to see because of my mother. It's a guilt thing. She birthed me, so I feel obligated to endure these nightmares. She dragged me to see "The Da Vinci Code" and its demon spawn "Angels & Demons".

She also dragged me to see "Race To Witch Mountain" last year, as retribution for seeing "Watchmen" the week before. That movie really ticked her off.

Do you see a connection, here? Whenever Tom Hanks or The Rock make a shitty, shitty movie, I will see it. Because my mother secretly hates me.

What the hell am I supposed to say about this "movie"? Recap - GO!

The Rock is a minor-league hockey player who bloodlessly knocks the teeth out of the mouths of opposing players during play, earning him the nickname "the Tooth Fairy" by his inbred Michigan fans.

He used to be an NHL bigshot. Then he injured himself, got dropped down to the minors, and has carved out a niche for himself as a bruiser on the ice. He busts jaws, then spends his time in the penalty box smiling like a fool and making endless tooth puns.

Seriously. He makes maybe thirteen of these awful fucking puns in less than a minute. I wanted to set fire to the theatre less than five minutes into this fucking atrocity.

He also hates dreams. He shatters the self-esteem of an 8-year-old admirer early on with some diatribe about adjusting his expectations, which is fine in theory.

But The Rock goes out of his way to break this kid, telling him that there are 7-year-olds out there with more skills and more drive to succeed, and that the kid should really just give up and kill himself before his balls drop. It's overkill.

And it's just the first occassion of many in this movie that sledgehammers the "I hate dreams" thing into your grey matter. Gee, do you think The Rock will learn his lesson and realize that following your dreams is just great before the credits roll?

He's dating Ashley Judd, who is looking fucking haggard these days. She's saddled with two kids, a little girl, and a guitar-strumming tween son.

The little girl loses a tooth, and Double Jeopardy puts a dollar under her pillow. The Rock later steals this dollar from under her pillow because he ran out of money during a poker game with his nameless friends.

The Rock is a douchebag.

The little girl wakes up and freaks out because her tooth is gone, and there's no money. Kiss The Girls sneaks another dollar under her pillow while The Rock distracts her, trying to explain to the young lady that there is no real Tooth Fairy.

Normal Life looks at the man like he's a child rapist, and assures her spawn that the Tooth Fairy is very real.

The Rock is summoned to Fairy-fucking-Land while he sleeps, where Julie Andrews informs the bastard that he must perform some lame magical community service as a Tooth Fairy for being such a dick. That's all in the trailer. That awful trailer.

Billy Crystal shows up to remind me that he hasn't been relevant since "Mr. Saturday Night".

Then British comedy genius Stephen Merchant comes around, playing The Rock's wingless fairy case worker, and makes me question my sanity. Why the fuck are you in this movie, Stephen? Why?!

Although, truth be told, he's the best part of the movie. He's the only actor in the movie that doesn't embarass him/herself by the time it ends. And a Stephen Merchant moment is one of only two in the film that actually made me laugh.

That gangly bastard, standing atop a zamboni in a crowded stadium, manning an amnesia cannon, singing "Don't You Forget About Me". God help me, it was funny.

Where was I?

The Rock does not perform admirably as a Tooth Fairy, at first. Hilarity ensues as he attempts to extricate loose teeth from various homes. He eats some toothpaste and shrinks. He gets chased by cats. He uses too much amnesia dust on one hapless family, making them forget who they are. Amazing stuff.

He also screws up his private life, as well. He convinces the tween guitar prodigy to enter a school talent show in order to show off his panty-melting six string skills. There's after an extended practice montage, featuring The Rock's drumming talent.

Later, he has a bad day in Tooth Town and tells the poor kid that he'll never be the next Steve Vai and that he should just run out into traffic to spare his mother the shame of bombing at the talent show. The angry young man smashes his guitar and cries and Where The Heart Is tells The People's Asshole to stay the fuck away from her children.

Some stuff happens. I'm not sure exactly what, because I kinda blacked out after the guitar-smashing bit.

I remember the six string kid telling The Rock that he wanted to be just like Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan at one point in the film. That seems like a poor decision, considering the rather tragic ends to their respective stories. That was a head-scratcher.

I know that Stephen Merchant stares creepily at the wings of all the other Tooth Fairies, then he earns a Tooth Fairy Learner's Permit. Which I guess was his life's dream. And this brings The Rock his Moment of Clarity.

He realizes that dreams are awesome, and that he should pursue his own dream of returning to the NHL. He convinces Norma Jean's son to pursue his own dream of dying in a helicopter crash at age 35, fixing the little dude's guitar with his shitty magic wand and flying him to the talent show with his fake-as-fuck Tooth Fairy wings.

The Rock impresses Julie Andrews with his newfound tooth-stealing skills, as well as his newfound belief in THE POWER OF DREAMS, and she tells him that his Tooth Fairy time is over. She uses the all-powerful amnesia dust on him, so that he forgets all his time in the magical FairyLand.

This is supposed to be a rather sad moment in the film, but I couldn't muster enough emotion to give a damn. I was too busy being hypnotized by Stephen Merchant's massive bug-eyed stare projected onto the 40-foot high screen.

Somehow The Rock winds up at the talent show, with no memory of how he got there. Luckily, he arrives just in time to catch Joe Satriani Jr's Amplifier-Exploding rendition of "Sunshine Of Your Love". The kid is so fucking good, that the young instrumentalists from the previous act decide they have to come back onstage and jam with him.

Truly, the Power of Rock is Supreme.

The Rock proposes to A Time To Kill as the crowd goes nuts over the transcendant musical moment they all just shared, and the film mercifully ends.

There's some bullshit sequence during the credits with Billy Crystal and Julie Andrews attending one of The Rock's games as a member of some NHL team, but I don't remember any of the particulars. But hey, The Rock followed his dreams, and made it back to the big leagues!

It was awful. That's all that matters.

Painful. That's what "Tooth Fairy" is. I have devoted much more time writing about this movie than it possibly deserves.

Remember the scene in "The Rundown" when The Rock runs into Arnold Schwarzenegger in some seedy bar and Arnold passes the torch to his heir-apparent, telling him to "have fun"?

I want that guy back.

Somebody cast The Rock in the inevitable "God Of War" movie. Please.