It’s not a coincidence that Dwayne Johnson evolved into one of the most popular, bankable, and highest-paid stars in the industry once he stopped listening to what other people were telling him to do and focused on carving out his own path to the top of the Hollywood A-list, because Tooth Fairy almost torpedoed his chances of ever being taken seriously as a leading man.
The former professional wrestler didn’t want to be pigeonholed as an action hero, so the first decade of his acting career saw him broaden his horizons through a myriad of projects like sports drama Gridiron Gang, nonsensical apocalyptic fable Southland Tales, and ensemble comedy Be Cool.
However, the world of family-friendly comedies proved to be a colossal misstep, to the extent that the 2010 fantasy that saw Johnson transformed into the mythical tutu-wearing collector of pearly whites still ranks as his worst-reviewed movie ever on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as standing as the final time he took top billing in something so cynically precision-engineered to try and subvert his persona.
Make no bones about it, Tooth Fairy sucks and it sucks hard, so much so that when asked how he felt about it becoming a minor classic among the younger demographic, The Rock admitted it was “a classic something,” by which he obviously means a steaming piece of sh*t.
Regardless, the widely-panned and outright embarrassing disaster has somehow ended up as one of the top-viewed titles on iTunes this weekend, with FlixPatrol naming and shaming Tooth Fairy as having been awarded a new set of wings with which to soar up the platform’s rankings.