How does Ted overcome this problem? Well, it dresses up a romantic-comedy film as a gross-out humour film. When one of my friends recently said why he was disappointed with Ted, he said it was because, "it was a Rom-Com, I expected better."*
Ted is the first live-action feature film from Family Guy creator, Seth McFarlane, so fans of Family Guy should know that the film largely follows his style of humour - awkward, hipster style comedy that likes to look at popular culture from the present day and in the past to poke fun at it. The film itself follows a young and lonely John (Bretton Manley) who receives a brand new teddy bear from his parents for Christmas, which he soon names 'Teddy'. One night, he makes a wish for 'Teddy' to come alive and be his best friend and his wish comes true. Flash-forward about 30 years and the now grown-up John (Marky Mark Whalberg) and Ted (voiced by Seth McFarlane) are still thunder buddies (best friends), but their friendship is getting in the way of John's relationship with his girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis). After John is forced to kick Ted out of his house to start his own life, Ted is faced with getting a minimum wage job (after being a mega-star when he first started talking, but is now washed-up), having a rubbish apartment in a rough part of town and starting a new relationship with his girlfriend, Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). Oh, and there's also some sub-plots that involve Lori's creepy boss, Rex (Joel McHale) lusting after her and a strange man, Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) and his son, Robert (Aedin Mincks) who want to buy Ted for themselves and seem almost obsessed by him.
Firstly, no matter what people say, Ted is funny. If you find Family Guy funny, then you will enjoy Ted. While it's not laugh-out-loud funny all the way through, there are definitely enough jokes peppered throughout to keep yourself entertained. Just don't expect the humour and the jokes to be thrown out constantly, otherwise you will be disappointed. And needless to say, the funniest scenes in Ted are the ones that involve, Ted - the scenes that only feature the human characters somehow feel a little bit flat in comparison.
Secondly, the humour in Ted is largely aimed at the older crowd who grew up in the 1970s and 80s, because a lot of the popular culture jokes fall into that era (especially the cameos from such people as Tom Skerrit and Sam J. Jones aka. Flash Gordon). However, it has to be said that sometimes McFarlane's comedy seems to be like an "inside" joke that he has between himself and his friends that he is trying to share with the rest of us. While the Flash Gordon reference was funny for about two minutes, it was definitely over-played to the point where I wondered why McFarlane was so obsessed with him? I certainly didn't get the joke...
Unfortunately for Ted, there are a few more negative aspects that I can talk about rather than positive. Firstly, like I have previously said, the film is not really the gross-out comedy that you would expect from Seth McFarlane. The film itself is largely a romantic-comedy with a few gross jokes thrown in-between. While you could argue that the trailer itself makes no attempt in hiding that the film is a romantic comedy (it starts by showing how John and Lori first met), but I understood the trailer as being a parody of romantic-comedy films. Now, I didn't really have an issue with the film being a romantic-comedy, but I can imagine that it won't please the majority of the crowd wanting to see a film that has humour in the same vein as Family Guy.
My next issue with Ted was that the writing of the film felt a little bit half-baked. Whenever there is a scene between Lori and her leaching boss Rex, the dialogue just felt like it was written by a 10 year old. Rex likes Lori and wants her to be with him... yeah, we get that, but we don't need to characters to tell us with such inane dialogue (I think one line from Rex was something like, "I want you to be with me, not him. Give me a chance." I mean, who speaks like this, really?!)
But, like I said, the real scene stealer is Ted himself, so all the scenes with the human counter-parts are a bit slow or awkward in comparison. The motion capture on Ted is seamless, with a CGI Ted completely blending in with his surroundings (a sign of how computers have advanced since 1993 with CGI dinosaurs?!) Ted's humour also completely outshines any of the comedy attempts by the human characters - look out for how he tries to seduce Tami-Lynn in the supermarket (although the trailer gives away most of that), Ted's attempt to trash talk Robert and his Dad, Donny when trying to escape from them and then his final gag where he says that they put his stuffing back in wrong.
Finally, the main issue that I had with Ted was that most of the plot felt half complete. While the majority of the film devotes itself to the make-ups and break-ups of John and Lori, the sub-plots involving Lori's Boss doesn't seem to go anywhere, and the sub-plot of the crazy Donny and Robert only seem to be around for their introduction in the park and then for the finale in the third act of the film where they try to kidnap Ted. Personally, I'd have liked to see the film drop the entire sub-plot of Rex and Lori and spend more time in developing Donny and Robert as true comic-book style villains (I'm thinking like Sid in Toy Story - they could have been the sadistic toy torturers in Ted!)
So, overall Ted is an enjoyable effort from Seth McFarlane out of his Family Guy fame, although it's not really the film you might have expected from him. Instead, expect a fluffy romantic-comedy in parts with a very funny, and very rude, teddy bear.
***½ / *****
*Quote courtesy of Nathan Priest!
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