Ted 2
Director: Seth MacFarlane.
Screenplay: Seth MacFarlane, Wellesley Wild, Alec Sulkin.
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Morgan Freeman, Jessica Barth, Sam J. Jones, Patrick Warburton, Michael Dorn, Bill Smitrovich, John Slattery, Cocoa Brown, John Carroll Lynch, Ron Canada, Tom Brady, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel, Dennis Haysbert, Liam Neeson.
Narrator: Patrick Stewart.
“There are no chicks with dicks, Johnny, only guys with tits”
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane always struck me as the type of humorist that had a seemingly endless amount of jokes. His animated show has been hugely successful for years and seems to have the ability that The Simpsons has in terms of staying power and maintaining a high standard of entertainment. However, that ability to provide the goods is severely lacking from this second attempt at a winning formula.
In order to make his marriage work, Ted (Seth MacFarlane) and his new wife Lynn (Jessica Bartha) decide to have a baby and go looking for a suitable sperm donor. However, in the eyes of the law, Ted is not a human and therefore unable to adopt or even for his marriage to remain legal, setting forth a struggle for him to prove his place in society.
When he delivered Ted in 2012, fans of MacFarlane’s humour were happy with his transition into feature films and with a profane and anthropomorphised new character in tow, he was on to a winner. Ted was a comedy gimmick that worked and I was happy to see more when this sequel was announced. That said, this doesn’t bring anything new to the table and is so boring you’re likely to fall asleep halfway through our cuddly friend’s one syllable name.
The jokes (if you can even call them that) are regurgitated but this time they really don’t stick. It’s hard to imagine that the creator of Family Guy actually had anything to do with this. I’m not one who’s easily offended, in fact, I actually welcome risqué jokes but a film that has nothing more to offer other than how many black cocks appear on the internet every time you use a search engine frankly verges on racism and isn’t even a funny gag the first time, never mind the third or fourth attempt.
It’s never a good sign when you feel the need to force out a few disingenuous laughs but I found myself doing that here. I was almost trying to convince myself that there was something I was missing but I should’ve known from the start; the song-and-dance sequence alone is overlong and, ultimately, pointless and from the outset you get the feeling that MacFarlane started padding before the opening credits had even finished.
Call me old fashioned but I was always under the impression that a comedy should actually consist of, erm… comedy. This whole, misjudged, cock-centric affair is absolutely bereft of humour and considering it’s so overly concerned with the male genitalia it’s actually quite limp and fails to perform when it matters. It only succeeds in being turgid, tedious and a hugely disappointing and desperate attempt to rekindle it’s predecessor’s wonder and magic.
This is a one trick teddy, overstuffed with a (fully justified) inferiority complex. Ted’s inability to procreate echoed that of my feelings towards the film. To paraphrase wiser fellas than myself… it’s a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.
Mark Walker
Trivia: Morgan Freeman’s character Patrick Meighan is named after Family Guy writer Patrick Meighan.
MARKED MOVIES 
October 23, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Great review bro and the Raising Arizona reference was epic. I never saw Ted 2 mainly because I hated the first movie so much, or at least what I was able to sit through. Not sure if this one will ever find a spot on my watchlist. 😉
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October 23, 2015 at 3:42 pm
Ha! I was wondering if anyone would get that reference. Well done, man. You got it in one.
I thought that quite appropriate considering Ted was trying to have a baby too.
That aside, you’ve made a wise choice. I actually liked the first film but this is absolutely woeful. I was lucky if I sniggered twice throughout. It’s embarrassing to even call it comedy.
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October 23, 2015 at 4:10 pm
Raising Arizona is one of my favorite comedies of all time. No way you were going to slip that one by me! 😉
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October 23, 2015 at 5:41 pm
Haha! I’m glad you got it. I can sometimes use a little Coen’s quote in my reviews and when I do , I always refer to them as “wiser fellas than myself” to keep in line with Sam Elliot’s The Stranger from The Big Lebowski. It’s seems to be a little thing that happens now and again.
Raising Arizona is one of my favourite comedies as well. Second to Lebowski, of course. 😉
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October 23, 2015 at 3:42 pm
Great review, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first film so I don’t think I’ll see this one.
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October 23, 2015 at 3:44 pm
I enjoyed the first one. I got genuine laughs from that but this was really bad. Really bad! Avoiding it is the smart move.
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October 23, 2015 at 3:47 pm
Sounds like a really shit movie.
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October 23, 2015 at 3:53 pm
Shit, indeed!
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October 23, 2015 at 4:08 pm
I won’t waste my money going to see it then.
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October 23, 2015 at 5:41 pm
That’d be a good move, man! Save yer pennies!
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October 23, 2015 at 5:55 pm
I’m saving them for something worthwhile.
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October 23, 2015 at 3:48 pm
Nice review Mark. I haven’t seen this but I find Seth McFarlane’s humor lazy and hackneyed. My opinion on Family Guy is best summed up by Trey Parker and Matt Stone:
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October 23, 2015 at 5:44 pm
I wouldn’t bother with it Charles. I actually like Family Guy and I enjoyed the first Ted movie but if you’re not a fan then stay well clear of this one. It’s pretty awful.
Interesting little clip there. Strangely I’ve always seen the humour of South Park in that way. I suppose it just what floats your boat, man. 😉
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October 23, 2015 at 6:30 pm
I’m a huge South Park fan having grown up watching the series. It’s one of my all-time favorite shows and I’ve seen every episode at least several times.
As for Family Guy, I really do hate the writing. I know a ton of people love it and while I respect their opinions I despise the series’ structure.
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October 23, 2015 at 7:07 pm
I really enjoyed the South Park movie but I was never a big fan of the show. It never really clicked with me.
That said, it’s sendup of Family Guy and it’s “you think that bad? What about the time when…” does happen quite a lot in MacFarlane’s writing. That’s an astute observation there.
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October 23, 2015 at 7:54 pm
I think South Park might play better for a U.S. audience than an international one since the show references a lot of domestic events.
As for Family Guy, the gag reflex for me is overused and hacky.
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October 24, 2015 at 11:10 am
Ouch! I remember some bad reviews of this earlier in the summer and made a mental note to give it a miss. To be honest I thought the first one was a bit pony once you got past the initial joke of the bear being offensive (which did admittedly make me laugh a few times).
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October 24, 2015 at 5:12 pm
I fucking hated this flick, man. I was so pissed off that I wasted what little time I have for watching films these days. It was a disaster of a comedy. Very poorly written and lazily delivered. It was actually so desperate to gain laughs that it was quite offensive (and I’m not easily offended at all).
Your mental note was spot on brother! I don’t even give out a 1 star rating that often but this thoroughly deserved it. Avoid at all costs!
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October 25, 2015 at 12:59 am
Tough to argue with your review Mark. I laughed a few times but was otherwise left feeling a bit bored. A seen it all before, done better, type-thing. The opening song and dance act left a bitter taste in my mouth from the get-go: totally unnecessary and clearly MacFarlane over-indulging himself. Top write-up mate!
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October 25, 2015 at 9:13 pm
Cheers Adam! From the opening song and dance number that’s when alarms already started ringing for me. It never got any better and was a really poor excuse for comedy. It was seriously dire, man. Glad you felt you the same, bud. I thought I might have been missing something.
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October 25, 2015 at 6:52 pm
Can’t say as I even bothered with this and you haven’t given me any reason to bother! If you know what I mean 🙂
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October 25, 2015 at 9:02 pm
I hear you, man! I reckon you’ve judged it perfectly already. Stay clear of this turkey. It’s a mess!
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October 26, 2015 at 10:22 am
This sounds exactly like the sorta comedy I’d hate! Great review mate. Although I gotta disagree with ya on one thing, FG and AD don’t have anything close to the staying power of the Simpsons, or South Park even. Family Guy especially got old pretty quickly. This is just me personally of course
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October 26, 2015 at 11:07 am
It’s shit, man. Plain and simple.
I hear you Family Guy vs The Simpsons. No-one could beat The Simpsons I, however, still chuckle at FG and I’ve been watching it for years now. That said, I could never get into American Dad. I wasn’t a fan of that at all.
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October 26, 2015 at 11:09 am
Yeah Seth is hit or miss for me. See I liked AD originally haha.
Have you seen Rick and Morty? Get onto it man, it makes FG and AD look like shit!! It is so well written, done by the same guy who wrote Community
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October 26, 2015 at 11:26 am
Definitely hit or miss. I enjoy FG but sometimes the jokes don’t always fly.
Never heard of Rick and Morty. I’ll do some research, man. Thanks for the heads-up!
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October 27, 2015 at 7:42 pm
Those last couple of paragraphs are hilarious man. Much funnier than the movie, and while I did appreciate it a bit more than yourself it’s not a patch on the original. This was a film that totally didn’t need to get made. Way too many black c**ks.
*shudder*
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October 27, 2015 at 7:55 pm
Haha! Thank you sir. I didn’t get many laughs from this film at all. It was terrible and like you say, completely unnecessary. As were the black dick jokes. I mean, how many times did he try and shoehorn that joke in? Woeful, man!
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October 27, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Yeah that was pretty bad. Also, the magic of the talking stuffed teddy is gone in a sequel, so that right there was problematic. And this was one case where I couldn’t stand Amanda Seyfried. Ugh she was so terrible. Worst. Lawyer. Ever.
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October 28, 2015 at 9:21 am
Yeah, spot on, man. The novelty wore off before the film even got started. It’s only chance of success was to have fresh jokes but it just didn’t provide them.
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