Review of Ted (2012) by Joanna B — 22 Feb 2016

Sitting down in the cinema with my popcorn, I have never experienced a film with such a clearly defined demographic. Packed almost to capacity with grown men clutching at their seat and gasping for air attempting to recover from an onslaught of crude fart, anal sex, turd and ejaculation references, Ted is certainly not great cinema, It achieves its limited aspirations in a preposterously creative literary interpretation of the boy v's man blight.

Having left commonsense and logic in the distant past, Writer/Director/Voiceover/Creator of Family Guy Seth MacFarlane's flash of brilliance in creating a Bad Santa-like irrepressibly naughty bear with politically incorrect urges loses a little in translation. For those viewers who are unversed in his previous works or are unaware of the relevance of copious pop-culture references, all his shenanigans fall sadly short of funny.

Star Trek's Patrick Stewart's deeply expressive narrative sets the tongue-in-cheek tone to the miraculous events of Christmas 1985 for eight year old John Bennett (Bretton Manley).

A lonely child, all John ever wanted was a true and loyal friend. Making a wish on a shooting start that his Christmas present - A large teddy bear unoriginally named Ted - would come to life, John is blessed with th companion he always craved.

After the families initial shock and the world's fleeting 15-minutes-of-fame infatuations, the two are instantly inseparable; and whilst hidden under the sheets on a scarily stormy night they cement their friendship by vowing to be Thunder Buddies for life.

Fast forward 27 years, Ted (voiced by MacFarlane) has matured into a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking couch-potato who continuously sabotages the minimum wage John's (Mark Whalberg) life by undermining any and all of John's responsibilities and relationship with his ultimately understanding girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis).

By when pushed to the limit by Ted's perpetual juvenilia on their fourth anniversary, the disgusted Lori insists that John move on with his adult life, and leave Ted behind. With living arrangements, social engagements and visitation rights all under the microscope, will John accept an offer to sell Ted to a bizarrely creepy father/son pair of strangers? Or can John make the logical choice between his past and his future?

MacFarlane gets more than the expected mileage from what essentially is a one-joke movie built around Ted's politically incorrect proclivities. Ex-funky buncher Whalberg bears the brunt of Ted's ludicrousness being pummeled, punched and whipped by a TV antenna into acting submission. Kunis is pleasant as ever but shortchanged on story and consistently upstaged.

The support cast attempts to make the best of a bad situation, Giovanni Ribisi looks life he is having a blast as a dancing nutcase come emotionally intense bear-napper. Sam J. Jones, who played Flash Gordon in the critically ridiculed 1980 movie, shows up as his long forgotten himself. Joel McHale is suitably creepy as Lori's detestable boss and Jessica Barth has an odd role as Ted's perfectly curvaceous dumb-blonde check-out chick human girlfriend, don't even want to understand the physicality's there.

The verdict: Although a solid attempt at adding something to the comedy scape, much like his TV show, MacFarlane's Ted gags drag on incessantly to the same painfully pointless end.

Published: Queanbeyan Age.

Date of Publication: 13/07/2012.