A Tooth Fairy Tale Review: Animated Adventure with a Touch of Family-Friendly Preteen Love Story
Throughout this cartoon adventure for preteens, the fairy community is dedicated to gathering teeth from sleeping children and leaving gold under their pillows. Board-riding teenage rebel fairy Van (voiced by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled about devoting his life to gathering baby teeth—a sentiment that’s entirely reasonable. He’s only slightly more interested in the underlying economics of the situation: the fairies deliver the teeth to mysterious goblins, who provide metal as payment. However, Van’s interest is piqued when he spots a goblin (voiced by Larkin Bell), who proves to be far from the ugly creature he had imagined.
An Unlikely Bond and Shared Threat
The stage is set for an adventure with a light sprinkling of young love (even though it remains very much suitable for children). The goblin and fairy groups are estranged from each other, and there’s nothing like the thrill of the forbidden to bring people together. The two species portrayed in the film are incredibly similar, yet each holds prejudiced beliefs about the opposite side. The fairies are said to be entitled sorts, prone to taking anything they want, while goblins are allegedly stupid, smelly, and backward, but are in fact intelligent and advanced in technology.
Of course, such a setup 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, though not especially competent, villains.
Ideal Viewers and Final Thoughts
There aren’t very many children’s animations targeting the kind of audience that is beginning to have early romances, but aren’t yet old enough for whatever 14-year-olds view these days in lieu of popular teen sagas. Should your youngster is in the right age bracket, it probably won’t to be their next favorite movie, but you could do worse.
The Tooth Fairy Story arrives in Scottish cinemas starting October 10 and across the United Kingdom from 24 October.
