I believe it was Homer Simpson who wisely observed that it's not that tough being a film cricket, and for the most part he's right. But every January, the studios traditionally dump the dregs of their release slate into theaters, which means I get to spend an afternoon with a flick like "Tooth Fairy," a boilerplate family comedy starring Dwayne Johnson as a jaded professional athlete who learns a life-affirming lesson thanks to cute kids and old-fashioned magic. I resent this for two reasons. First of all, movies such as "Tooth Fairy," while insultingly clichéd, are nonetheless well-meaning, so I stand to come off like a cement-hearted bitch should I offer up an honest cricketal - er, critical assessment. And secondly, I was really hoping to never have to admit how much I adore Dwayne Johnson.

Formerly, otherwise, and better known by his pro-wrestling name The Rock (but don't ever call him that), Johnson is an utterly charming screen presence whose transition from one form of pretending to another seemed more organic than the efforts of less-handsome forbears like Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, or the great Roddy Piper. Initially Johnson tried to fit into the obvious tough-guy mold, then he inadvertently shot that straight to hell when he displayed some bona fide comedic chops on "Saturday Night Live." He might look like an impervious slab of granite, yet he's sweetly goofy and self-effacing, a humble yet oddly asexual Everyman along the lines of Brendan Fraser. But Hollywood likes to pigeonhole, and since no one is exactly sure what to do with a funny best-friend type in the body of an action hero, let's cram him into a pretty pink tutu.

Johnson stars as minor-league hockey player Derek Thompson, who has earned the nickname "The Tooth Fairy" due to his thuggy antics on the rink. (His own choppers are suspiciously flawless for a late-career goon; Johnson could have rubbed them with dirt or something.) One night the young daughter of Derek's girlfriend Carly (Ashley Judd, badly lit in a thankless role) loses a tooth, and the cynical Derek carelessly mentions to the moppet that the Tooth Fairy doesn't actually exist. Naturally, he sprouts wings and gets summoned to Tooth Fairy Land, a sort of NASA with pastel-crinoline uniforms, where top fairy Lily (Julie Andrews, in full-on Julie Andrews mode) reprimands Derek for "dissemination of disbelief" (as well as interrupting) and sentences him to two weeks' tooth retrieval.

Derek is assigned to a gangly caseworker named Tracy (Stephen Merchant, "Extras"), a wannabe tooth fairy whose "wing envy" paves one of the roads to Derek's redemption as he learns to embrace the idea of having hopes and dreams. Other streets include proving himself to Carly, bonding with her exhausted-looking pre-teen son over his rock-n-roll fantasy, and taking another shot at the bigs while putting a cocky young upstart (that's fish-eyed pro skater Ryan Sheckler) in his place. Um, I think that's it. Oh, and all the while underwhelming director Michael Lembeck shepherds Johnson through the humiliating, slapsticky paces of carrying out his tooth-fairy duties, which call for him to shrink, turn invisible, get chased by pets, and/or fake intestinal distress in order to keep his strange secret and shove rolled-up dollar bills (!?) under kids' pillows. My lost teeth never yielded a cash straw. Maybe that's the way they do things in Colombia.

But Johnson - bless his heart - sells it, that guileless smile and go-for-broke sincerity keeping "Tooth Fairy" from being the soul-sucking waste of time that children's films often turn out to be. Little kids will likely dig it; he-man in totally non-macho situations learns easy truths and everyone goes home happy, hopefully with leftover candy. And while the bickering bromance between Johnson and the hilarious Merchant (he co-created "The Office" and rightly points out Johnson's Easter Island head) provides a few genuine chuckles, adults will cringe at the total lack of nuance along with predictable plot points that are unrealistic in their laughable simplicity. Now, on the off chance that "Tooth Fairy" is too subtle for you, the trite script, cobbled together by no less than five writers, spells it out: "Dreams are good," Derek concedes. But in case you still don't get it - perhaps you're not sure whether having goals and aspirations could benefit you as well? - Derek then clarifies: "For everyone."