Goon review

Goon (15/R, 91 mins)
Director: Michael Dowse

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Nice guy Doug (Seann William Scott) is a bouncer of little brain who gets a trial for his local ice hockey team after they witness his fighting abilities. Even though he can barely skate, he ends up at a minor league Canadian team as an enforcer to protect their star player and get him out of his slump, which puts Doug on a collision course with another legendary destroyer (Liev Schreiber). Funny and sweet, brutal and profane in equal measure, this makes up in amiability and one-liners what it lacks in storytelling. Characters are flat and there are more hockey scenes than are ideal, but a likeable and convincing Scott keeps it on track and there’s a certain compulsive appeal to the violence.

Tooth Fairy review

Tooth Fairy (PG, 101 mins)

Director: Michael Lembeck

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dwayne Johnston completes his metamorphosis from action star to children’s stooge with this sickly family fantasy. The artist formerly known as The Rock stars as ice hockey player Derek ‘The Tooth Fairy’ Thompson, so called because of his on-rink signature move of clattering into opponents until their teeth fall out. But when he lets slip to his girlfriend’s young daughter that there’s no such thing as the tooth fairy, his punishment is to become an actual tooth fairy for a couple of weeks. Cue lots of magic potions for invisibility and shrinking as he collects teeth while having to hide his fairy wings from his teammates and family. Normally such setups lead to thoroughly noxious affairs, but thanks to the likeability of Johnston this is simply asinine instead, though padded with subplots and far more ice hockey scenes than should be allowed in any movie. It’s made more bearable by wheeling out the likes of Julie Andrews and Billy Crystal in cameos, but ultimately it all comes down to trite lessons being learned. The real lesson that should be learned by filmmakers is that kids are smarter than them and deserve better than this.