Starring Dwayne Johnson and Ashley Judd. Rated G. Opens Friday, January 22, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

The problems start early for Tooth Fairy: a premise that involves ex-wrestler Dwayne Johnson sprouting gossamer wings and donning a pink tutu to play the title character. Director Michael Lembeck (whose heavy-handed approach here makes his work on the last two Santa Clause movies seem positively ethereal by comparison) has one thing going for him. Seeing Johnson decked out like a flying ballerina is good for one or two halfhearted laughs. After that—no matter how much fluttering we have to endure—this woefully overdone turkey simply refuses to get off the ground.

You know you’ve got trouble when the screenplay is credited to no less than five writers. Still, the two principal scriptwriters are Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Hollywood veterans responsible for such solid middlebrow entertainment as Splash and Parenthood. And—at least on paper—the story doesn’t sound all that awful. Johnson plays Derek, a minor-league hockey player who’s known as the Tooth Fairy because his fierce body-checking tends to leave his opponents with missing molars. His new girlfriend (a tired-looking Ashley Judd) wants Derek to bond with her two kids (Destiny Whitlock and Chase Ellison). The problem? Derek is a cynic who—thanks to the downward trajectory of his hockey career—has lost the ability to believe in dreams coming true.

The solution? Beam Derek up to Tooth Fairy boot camp, where veteran fairies played by Julie Andrews and Billy Crystal attempt to show him the ropes. After that, Derek is assigned to his personal instructor. (An unintentionally creepy Stephen Merchant.) Although Johnson struggles gamely to make it through the kind of humiliations that more than equal his trash-talking days as The Rock, it’s all for nothing. If you’re over five, this movie’s about as entertaining as a root canal.