Ted 2

There are a lot of great comedy films out there. Films that make you split your sides for a full two hours. But because Hollywood is a dick, they think they can make sequels to these comedy films and they are usually terrible. Weekend at Bernies became a cult classic while Weekend at Bernies 2 is a piece a trash that you’d cross the road to avoid. The problem is that they often just repeat the first film to a lesser effect rather than advance the story, meaning we end up watching the same film but worse. So can Ted 2 avoid doing that?

A few years after the events of original, Ted (Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy) has got married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth, Next) but after trying to adopt a baby, it is revealed that Ted is not legally person but actually property. With his best friend John (Mark Wahlberg, Boogie Nights) and their new lawyer Samantha (Amanda Seyfried, Les Miserables), they wage a court battle to try and make Ted into a real person.

Now instantly as a sequel, it breaks one of the biggest rules. Don’t change much off screen. Ted 2 decides to ditch John’s previous love interest Lori. Yes, never mind the bulk of the first film was how John had to grow up to prove to Lori they were right together, that’s tossed right out of the window in the first scene. While this may seem mild to you, it’s a massive breach of trust between the film and the viewer. Why should I care about any of the relationships being set up in this film knowing they could be written out before the next sequel? I can’t because this film throughout the developments of the first film so they could have some sort of point to start John off here and have a love interest here in the shape of Samantha.

That said, the main point of the film is to make you laugh, so does film do that? Sometimes. This is very typical humour of Seth MacFarlane, broad, quick and often referencing some part of pop culture. Like I said in my review of A Million Ways To Die In The West, if you don’t like his humour there’s nothing to see here. And even if you do like his humour, it is still hit and miss. It’s ok if the quickfire jokes miss as you can quickly move on to the next one, it’s when MacFarlane’s set pieces fall flat when it really shows. An example of this was during the scene where John and Ted try to steal Tom Brady’s sperm. The initial joke isn’t that funny and nothign especially amusing happens, so it’s just a waste of ten minutes.

But when the humour does work, it works really well. There’s a few cutaway jokes in the style of Family Guy and like in that show they are hit and miss, but I have to mention one particularly funny scene where John and Ted go to an improv show to yell sad suggestions. It’s absolutely hilarious, well paced and the punchline works. When this sort of scene crops up, you enjoy the film because the bizareness of it all shines through, and it’s when the film embraces this is when it works best.

What the film doesn’t do is earn any sincerity, which this film aims to have for reasons beyond my knowledge. Towards the end of the film an event happens and the jokes stop for about 20 minutes as wel deal with it. The film doesn’t earn this at all. These characters aren’t nuanced enough for us to have an emotional reaction, they are just broad enough to get the most jokes possible and for us not to hate them for the various dickish things they do. So when this film expects us to be sad, it doesn’t work and is a waste of our time.

While the characters are broad, the actors do perform them well. While I maintain that the voice Seth MacFarlane uses for Ted is his weakest because it sounds just like Peter Griffin, it’s still funny and works well for the character. Mark Wahlberg remains one of the best parts of the film by somehow getting past the dumb but nice cliché to make it actually funny and while I’m annoyed at the disappearance of Mila Kunis, Amanda Seyfried has enough about her to make a funny replacement, especially her complete ignorance of pop culture. Also, watch out for Patrick Warburton (Rules of Engagement) who kills every scene he is in.

Ted 2 is perfectly good when it does what it knows how to do, tell midly offensive jokes at a fair clip. When the film slows down for longer jokes or tries to be emotional in any way, the film falls flat because it doesn’t earn it at all. If MacFarlane wants us to be more engaged emotionally, he’s going to have to develop these characters more and have a stronger plot. Otherwise, he should stick to what he does best, give us enough character and enough plot to give us a solid two hours of jokes.

Best Moment: I died at the aforementioned improve scene as it’s MacFarlane humour at its best.

Worst Moment: Again it’s the aforemention Tom Brady scene as it’s MacFarlane humour at its worst.

3/5