The Tooth Fairy Story Review: Cartoon Journey with a Sprinkling of Family-Friendly Preteen Romance
In this animated adventure aimed at tweens, the fairy community focuses on collecting teeth from sleeping youngsters and leaving gold under their pillows. Board-riding teenage rebel fairy Van (voiced by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled about spending his future to gathering baby teeth—a feeling that’s entirely reasonable. He’s only slightly more curious about the underlying economics behind it all: the fairies hand over the molars to mysterious goblins, who provide metal in exchange. However, Van’s interest grows when he catches sight of a goblin (played by Larkin Bell), who proves to be not at all the ugly creature he expected.
An Unlikely Bond and Shared Threat
Everything is prepared for an adventure with a gentle touch of young love (though it’s perfectly appropriate for children). The goblin and fairy groups are estranged from one another, and nothing fuels the thrill of the forbidden to unite beings as one. Both groups portrayed in the film are incredibly similar, yet each holds prejudiced beliefs about the opposite side. The fairies are supposed to be entitled types, prone to taking whatever they fancy, while goblins are allegedly dim-witted, foul-smelling, and backward, but are actually intelligent and technologically advanced.
Of course, this scenario needs a shared foe to unite against, and this is duly provided by some nasty spiders, voiced by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. There’s no beating about the bush about their intentions: they want to eat the goblins and fairies, and they make for fairly bloodthirsty, if not especially competent, villains.
Target Audience and Overall Impression
You won’t find all that many children’s animations aimed at the kind of audience that is beginning to have first crushes, but are not mature enough for whatever teenagers are watching in lieu of Twilight. If your child falls into this age group, it probably won’t to become their new favorite movie, but you could do worse.
A Tooth Fairy Tale releases in Scottish cinemas starting October 10 and across the United Kingdom from 24 October.
