Review #969: 'Ted 2' (2015)

While I wouldn't exactly call Seth MacFarlane's live-action debut Ted (2012) a pleasant surprise, it was still slightly better than I expected. It took a relatively original idea, built it around the story of a man who refused to grow up, and delivered a few laughs along the way. The film's box-office success cemented the need for a sequel, and the original idea was to have Ted (voiced by McFarlane in a thick Boston accent) and best friend John (Mark Wahlberg) road trip across America with a van full of weed. But when they realised this was the story of We're the Millers (2013), the plan had to change.

Instead of the road trip we are given a half-baked and borderline offensive civil rights allegory, which never settles on how and when it should get to the point. With John now divorced from Mila Kunis's character from the first movie, he cannot help but feel lonely as he watches his friend Ted marry his girlfriend Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). Soon into the marriage, they are bickering like an old couple, and decide that the only way to repair things is to have a baby. However, due to the fact that Ted lacks reproductive organs, they opt for a sperm donor. With Sam J. Jones running low and a failed attempt to steal NFL star Tom Brady's seemingly sacred juice, along with the discovery that Tami-Lynn's years of drug abuse have left her infertile, they choose instead to adopt.

It is at this point that Ted is flagged by the government having previously ducking under their radar. Declared an item of property as opposed to an actual person, Ted has his marriage annulled, loses his job, and has every legal right he thought he once had taken from him. Seeking legal aid, Ted and John turn to rookie lawyer Samantha L. Jackson (Amanda Seyfried), a fellow pot-head who agrees to work the case pro bono. Meanwhile, Ted's nemesis Donny (Giovanni Ribisi), now working as a janitor for Ted's manufacturer Hasbro, looks to exploit this opening the law and convinces his boss Tom Jessup (John Carroll Lynch) to let him steal Ted back in order to open him up and see how he works, with the hope of making a fortune in allowing every child to own their own Ted.

The main problem with Ted 2 is that the comedy just seems off. Often seeking to simply out-gross anything that came before like the wave of comedies that hit the big screen in the wake of There's Something About Mary's success in the late 90's and early 2000's, the film is also peppered with pop-culture references with the running joke that Samantha L. Jackson doesn't even know who Samuel L. Jackson is. Conversations are often so vulgar that it's difficult to feel sympathy for Ted, who is voiced without any trace of charm or cuteness by MacFarlane. At almost two hours, it also drags, dipping in and out of the main plot thread without any care for narrative flow. I did laugh during Ted 2 - a cameo from Jay Leno and a Jurassic Park nod in particular - but this is a messy, often outright unfunny experience.


Directed by: Seth MacFarlane
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Giovanni Ribisi, Morgan Freeman, Patrick Warburton, Michael Dorn, John Carroll Lynch
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie