A Tooth Fairy Tale Review: Cartoon Journey with a Touch of Family-Friendly Tween Romance
In this cartoon journey 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 spending his future to gathering baby teeth—a sentiment that’s completely understandable. He is just a bit more curious about the underlying economics of the situation: the fairies deliver the teeth to unseen goblins, who supply gold as payment. But Van’s curiosity is piqued when he catches sight of a goblin (played by Larkin Bell), who turns out to be not at all the ugly creature he expected.
An Unlikely Connection and Common Enemy
The stage is set for an exciting quest with a gentle touch of teen romance (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 excitement of secrecy to bring people together. Both groups portrayed in the film are remarkably alike, yet both maintain biased views about the opposite side. Fairies are said to be entitled types, prone to taking anything they want, while goblins are allegedly dim-witted, foul-smelling, and backward, but are in fact intelligent and advanced in technology.
Of course, this scenario requires a common enemy to join forces against, and this is duly provided in the form of some nasty spiders, voiced by Jon Lovitz and Fran Drescher. They make no secret about their intentions: they want to eat the goblins and fairies, and they make for fairly bloodthirsty, though not particularly skilled, villains.
Target Audience and Overall Impression
You won’t find all that many children’s animations targeting the viewer group that is beginning to have first crushes, but are not mature enough for the content 14-year-olds are watching in lieu of popular teen sagas. If your child is in the right age bracket, it probably won’t to be their next favorite movie, but you could do worse.
A Tooth Fairy Tale releases in movie theaters in Scotland starting October 10 and the rest of the UK from 24 October.
