Fantasy, 106 Minutes, 2012
This is a funny movie. Funny in that old “a teddy bear just said ‘fuck’ and mimed fellatio!” way. There’s also some of that “a teddy bear just said ‘fuck’ and smoked some weed!” and a little “hey, a teddy bear just said ‘fuck’ and gave somebody the finger!” stuff. So if you like any of those then you’ll probably like this.
Ted is a teddy bear come to life on the wings of a young boy’s wish. While initially hailed as a miraculous phenomenon it’s been thirty years and people have better things to do. Ted and the boy, John (Mark Wahlberg [IMDB]), have grown up and settled into impressively immature ruts. When John’s girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis [IMDB]) pressures him for something more things have to change. An amazing number of “fucks” later everybody learns something about themselves what really matters in life.
So yeah, this is funny (and terribly, terribly crude – a fact that was driven home as I unfortunately ended up watching it with my grandmother). The problem isn’t with the movie per se but rather with what the movie indicates: we will continue to pay Seth McFarlane [IMDB] enormous sums of money to do the same shtick over and over (and over). “Ted” sounds exactly like Peter Griffin (a point so clear that they mock it in the film). The jokes are exactly like those you’d see on “Family Guy” (or “American Dad” or “The Cleveland Show”) except, as mentioned, they say “fuck”.
If you (like me) love the classic 1980 “Flash Gordon” [IMDB] movie then there’s an awesome cameo here that’s only a little bit stupid. There’s also an amazingly fun narration by Patrick Stewart [IMDB]. But if you don’t like Seth McFarlane you won’t like this (or anything he’s ever done since it’s all the same basic thing).
