I remember growing up watching and practically worshipping the man formerly known as The Rock laying the smackdown on the “candy asses of all the other jabronie wrestlers” in the WWF/WWE when I was a kid. But never, and this reviewer means never, expected to see “The Great One” reduced to such an atrocity as this. His acting career started off pretty well with the fun and action-packed “The Mummy Returns” and the prequel, “The Scorpion King.” The Rock (who now goes by just Dwayne Johnson) even went so far as to star in a low budget indie flick, alongside Jackass’ Johnny Knocksville, “Walking Tall” about small town law enforcement, which blew me away by its cruelly underrated brilliance.

However, it’s all been downhill from there. Trading his tough man boots for those last chance saloon kiddie films that you would usually expect to see Steve Martin or Robin Williams (or Vin Diesel on a bad day). So, let’s get to the root (trying to keep dental puns to a minimum) of the problem with “The Tooth Fairy.” Johnson plays Derek Thompson, an aging hockey player for a minor league team and has acquired the nickname of “The Tooth Fairy” for knocking out his opponent’s teeth, highlighting the inherent violence that’s always associated with hockey. He’s trying to get it together with his new girlfriend (Ashley Judd) and build bridges with her kids. However, on one fateful night, he accidentally blurts out that there is no tooth fairy to his girlfriend’s young daughter. That night, he is summoned up to fairy land and given his punishment for spreading doubt by a 'just-for-the-money’ performance from Julie Andrews as the fairy godmother. Derek must spend two weeks working as a real tooth fairy, learning the ropes while at the same time attempting to keep it a secret from everyone he knows.

Watching gave me an eerie sense of deja vu, and it suddenly hit me that this is in fact just a terrible copy-paste template of the excellent “The Santa Clause” with Tim Allen, minus any of that film’s wit, intrigue or magic. The script is a low-grade attempt at family humor, the plot is tediously linear and the mishandling of comedy legend Billy Crystal is completely unforgivable. I have to add that it is obviously intended to be a children’s film, but I think even how this film panders down to the lowest level of intelligence would be insulting to them. Take them to see “Sherlock Holmes” instead and they’ll learn something.

The real tragedy of “The Tooth Fairy” is Dwayne Johnson is really trying his hardest to make it work. He’s completely game for dressing up in tights, combined with a pink tutu and doing endless pratfalls that in this day and age of conceited actors is a rare gift. However, if The Rock could smell what this film was cooking, he should have known that it stunk.

Perhaps the message is that WWE superstars should just not be allowed in films. Sure, they may be able to sell the tough-guy image in the ring but rarely has that ever translated to the big screen. Triple H’s vampire act lacked bite in “Blade Trinity,” Stone Cold Steve Austin in “The Condemned” was exactly as it says in the title and we really wish that we didn’t see John Cena in “The Marine” (“12 Rounds” wasn’t bad though).

Incidentally, I hope none of the above mentioned superstars get ahold of this review when the WWE comes to Pullman in March – I’m not sure my insurance will cover a steel chair shot.