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Throughout this animated journey for preteens, the world of fairies focuses on collecting baby teeth of sleeping youngsters and placing gold under their pillows. Skateboarding youthful nonconformist fairy Van (brought to life by Booboo Stewart) shows little enthusiasm about spending his future to gathering baby teeth—a feeling that’s entirely reasonable. He is just slightly more interested in the financial workings of the situation: the fairies deliver the teeth to unseen goblins, who supply gold in exchange. But Van’s curiosity is piqued when he spots a goblin (voiced by Larkin Bell), who turns out to be far from the ugly creature he had imagined.

A Forbidden Bond and Common Enemy

The stage is set for an exciting quest with a gentle touch of teen romance (though it’s very much suitable for younger kids). The goblin and fairy communities are estranged from one another, and there’s nothing like the excitement of secrecy to unite beings as one. The two species portrayed in the film are incredibly similar, yet each holds prejudiced beliefs about the other. Fairies are supposed to be self-centered sorts, given to taking anything they want, while the goblins are reportedly dim-witted, smelly, and primitive, but are actually intelligent and technologically advanced.

Of course, such a setup requires a common enemy to unite against, and this is duly provided by a group of vicious spiders, with voices 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 serve as quite savage, if not especially competent, villains.

Target Audience and Overall Impression

You won’t find all that many animated films aimed at the viewer group that is beginning to have early romances, but are not mature enough for the content teenagers view these days instead of popular teen sagas. Should your youngster falls into this age group, this is unlikely to become their new all-time fave, but you could do worse.

The Tooth Fairy Story releases in Scottish cinemas starting October 10 and the rest of the UK from 24 October.