Ted

The premise behind Ted kind of sounds like a Steven Spielberg movie seen through the eyes of a drunken college frat boy. As the film opens, a kindly old storybook narrator (voiced by Patrick Stewart) introduces us to John Bennett, who back in 1985, was a lonely 8-year-old boy with no friends. He was so lonely, he was even jealous of the local Jewish boy who got beat up everyday by the neighborhood bullies. At least that boy was getting attention. That Christmas, John's parents gave him a teddy bear that the boy felt an instant bond with. And that night, John made a special wish that his stuffed bear was alive, and could be his friend forever.

Somehow, the cosmos listened, and granted John's wish. When he woke up the next morning, the stuffed bear was alive, walking around, talking, and pledging to be John's most faithful friend. When news broke of the Christmas miracle, John and Ted the bear became celebrities, complete with appearances on Johnny Carson. Alas, like a lot of flash-in-the-pan celebrities, fame was fleeting. We catch up with John some 27 years later, and find him to be a 35-year-old man-child (now played by Mark Wahlberg), who still sees his living stuffed toy, Ted (voiced by director and co-writer, Seth MacFarlane) as his best and pretty much only friend. The two spend their days getting high, making profane jokes, and watching their favorite movie, the 1980 cult classic, Flash Gordon.

Despite the fact that John pretty much has no career goals or direction in life, he has somehow managed to grab the heart of a beautiful and serious-minded career woman named Lori (Mila Kunis), who he has been dating for four years now. Lori genuinely loves John, but wishes he would grow up a little. And, the way she sees it, the first step to do that is to get rid of Ted, who is a constant interference in their personal and sex life. Ted is eventually forced to move into his own apartment, and get a job working as a cashier at a grocery store to support himself. Meanwhile, John is trying to prove to Lori that he can be a serious boyfriend, but he finds the allure of hanging out with his long-time stuffed bear friend something he just can't ignore. As John is forced to decide which path in life to follow, we get a lot of profane jokes and references to various 80s movies, which is to be expected from the film's creator, Seth MacFarlane, best known for creating the Family Guy cartoon series.

I suppose the main appeal behind Ted for MacFarlane's fans is seeing just how far he can push the envelope in an R-rated film, without the TV censors breathing down his neck. The answer, surprisingly, is he pushes it very little. Okay, yes, the movie stars a pot-smoking CG teddy bear who curses like a sailor, and has a thing for one night stands. But outside of that, the movie is nothing all that shocking, or anything really new to those who watch his different cartoon shows. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the screenplay (by McFarlane and two other writers) covers pretty much the same kind of material people see on his shows every week. The movie takes comic jabs at gays, Asians, Mexicans, September 11th, Adam Sandler movies, Jews, and sexual harassment at the work place. The problem is a lot of these pretty much boil down to references, or underdeveloped jokes. It's almost as if the filmmakers wrote up a list of offensive things they wanted their screenplay to touch on before they wrote it, and then just threw them in when they saw a chance, without really building to an actual joke.

I'll give you an example of this film's often lazy writing - At one point, John and Lori are remembering the night they first met. We then get a flashback, which is a shot-for-shot remake of the Saturday Night Fever parody that was featured in the 1980 spoof, Airplane!. That's really the joke right there, we're seeing Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis reenact a scene that was originally played by Robert Hays and Julie Haggerty. Why is this funny? Why is it funny just to re-create a scene from another comedy? Why not come up with your spoof, instead of ripping off a superior one? To be fair, some of the dialogue exchanges between Wahlberg and the stuffed bear can be funny, but they're never as funny as they could be. This is a one-joke movie. And once the sight of a cursing teddy bear has worn out its welcome, Ted has little to offer.

MacFarlane and his writers seemed to realize this, so they throw in some subplots to stretch out the running time, but ultimately prove to be pointless. There's a plot concerning Lori who is constantly being hit on by her sleazy boss at work (Joel McHale). Not only is the idea itself not funny, but the movie can't think of anything funny to do with it. They keep on going back to it, but the boss character is so unfunny and plays such a minor role, you wonder why he wasn't written out in an earlier draft of the script. Equally unnecessary is the character who serves as the film's villain - a creepy stalker (played by Giovanni Ribisi) who has been obsessed with Ted ever since he was a little boy, and wants to kidnap him. This plot and the character are also not funny in the slightest, not even when they try to throw in a Silence of the Lambs spoof. The character exists simply so the third act can have a pointless chase and action sequence that seems completely out of place with the rest of the movie.

I was stunned by how sloppy Ted seemed at times. The screenplay and its ideas seem to have been slapped together with little care. Even the characters are not that interesting. While the effects used to bring Ted to life are quite impressive, the character is largely a bore. He's a drunken frat boy in a bear costume. I also found it hard to care about the relationship between John and Lori, as they don't really get to spend a lot of time together, nor are they written as being interesting people to begin with. And yet, the movie expects us to care about them and be involved with them, if the last 15 minutes is any indication. Yes, this raunchy comedy about a crude teddy bear suddenly develops a big, gooey heart near the end, and seems to be trying in vain to manipulate our tear ducts. Forget about wanting to have its cake, and eat it too. This movie wants to smoke a bong, and warm our hearts too.

What we have here is a movie that is all concept, and little execution. Ted is repetitive (The first time it referenced Flash Gordon, I smiled. The fifth or sixth time, not so much.), and nowhere near as funny or as edgy as it seems to think it is. Maybe MacFarlane's humor works better in 20 minutes, interspersed with commercials. But then, I find him pretty hit or miss on TV, too. I was disappointed by this movie, but something tells me his legions of fans will not be.

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