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Thursday 2 August 2012

Ted Review 2012


So following a dry portrayal of comedy in The Other guys and a typical mundane bad-ass in Contraband, Mark Wahlberg returns for another comedic attempt? Honestly, when watching The Other Guys I felt I was one unfortunate member of the audience to witness one of the worst comedy's of the decade. What looked like so much fun in the trailer, The other guys was funny for the first 20 minutes or less, then quickly dried up like a prune. The fact Will Ferrell out-shined Marky-Mark was blatantly obvious. So on that note, I had no hope for a humours Mr Wahlberg in the near future.

However, a friendship between Mark and an outlandish teddy bear has shown results of being one of the finest comedy's of the last ten years. When I admit my prior judgement to Mark and this movie was wrong, boy I was really wrong.

A young John Bennett (Wahlberg) gets the ultimate wish, one that savours himself from his lonely neglected childhood. John, who appears a friendly guy although his will to make friends differs from the final result. Even the bullied kid wants nothing to do with John!

On a privileged Christmas morning, John receives his friend to be;  a cuddly beady-eyed teddy bear that at the time could do no wrong. John who uses his imaginary mind makes an incredible wish resulting with inscrutable results. Introducing the life in the teddy bear, Ted (Seth MacFarlane), a walking talking stuffed bear with a humorous yet realistic soul.

It is from there we are introduced to a hilarious montage as the movie takes us to places through-out the lives of both John and Ted as the results show the hilarious brotherhood and the growth acceptance of the public towards Ted. He is famous for being a once in a life-time miracle. John and Ted spend their days smoking weed and watching Flash Gordan! The mood and laxy-daisy lifestyle is disrupted now and again as John appears to struggle with the right satisfaction from his girlfriend of four years, Lori (Mila Kunis).

Ted is a simple plot, well almost no plot just an amusing tale of two friends having a lot of fun while trying to play separate lives. John has trouble considering Lori instead of Ted while Lori believes the time is right to send Ted out on his own. Its fun concept concentrates on the events before and after the relationship between Ted and John with Ted showing his crude and inappropriate personality as a supermarket assistant. Ted is left to fend for himself as a stalker lurks in the background, Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) who is desperate to create the life of John for himself.

Seth MacFarlane's Ted offers so many Jaw dropping scenes that you wonder how many parents mistakenly brought their kids to this movie. Obviously the trailer reveals some adult humour which is very little in terms of the overall movie as there is no way you are prepared to witness the extent Seth has taken to provide the best of laughs! Seth MacFarlane aka Peter Griffin aka Ted has created a wonderful film filled with originality. There is an obvious touch of Family Guy providing the pro- American theme tunes jingling in every background, Seth creates comedy like no other.

Seth manged to form a perfect role around Mark Wahlberg. I believed in Marks character. Sure, he was a kid when he came to meet Ted, but the fantastic thing about his character is he never changes and every now and again his vulnerability and child-hood shows with his lack of maturity taking its toll on his relationship with Lori. This worked so much better in terms of Mark's comedic performance previously. I felt his character, or acting or possibly poor script made his desperate attempt to be funny look stupidly obvious and lacked ambition in the Other Guys. Mark Wahlberg won me over in this movie as I felt myself not only laughing at MacFarlane's Ted!

It's full of surprising cameos and some strange turn of events that will leave you wanting more from John and Child-hood side kick Ted. With a nice soundtrack and fantastic CGI (performed by Seth through Motion Capture), the dedication and "will" to make the audience laugh out loud is seen through-out the movie.

Overall: If you Like Peter Griffin you will adore the origin of both Ted and John.

7.5/10

1 comment:

  1. Good review Gerard. I’m not a fan of Family Guy, so when I saw this and realized how freakin’ clever Seth MacFarlane really can be, I was taken aback and had a great time with this flick. Ted is such a great character, too, and Wahlberg works so well with him.

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