Ted 2 **** (2015, Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Morgan Freeman, voice of Seth MacFarlane) – Movie Review

With the help of some seamless CGI, talking bear Ted (voice of Seth MacFarlane) marries Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) but after a year they’re rowing badly. Ted’s lifetime best pal John (Mark Wahlberg) agrees he needs to have a baby to save his marriage.

The artificial insemination idea goes wildly wrong, so Ted and Tami try to adopt, but the court won’t agree that Ted is human for him to qualify to be a parent. Young pro bono lawyer Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) tries to help Ted prove he’s not ‘property’, while of course falling for the recently divorced John.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. This is the Ted (2012) sequel and that’s all you need to know. You either liked Ted or you didn’t. Personally, I thought it was hilarious, rude and charming. So is Ted 2. Maybe it is not quite as good, but it is quite good enough. The movie is inventive and fast moving, and most of its gags work. MacFarlane boldly goes, and risks a lot to make us laugh, living on the edge.

Some of the off-colour jokes are off limits, and a mistake. Some of the jokes are a bit too American to mean much here. Some of the jokes fall flat or seem pointless. MacFarlane’s need to burst into song leads him into weird places, like the opening Thirties Hollywood sequence, which is brilliant but bafflingly irrelevant.

But overall for wit, cleverness, invention and comic zest, this is a winner. The performing is expert – Wahlberg and Seyfried make it seem so very easy to bring on the laidback laughs and charm, sharing good chemistry. Barth is ideal, MacFarlane does a lot vocally, Morgan Freeman mops up some spare space, Liam Neeson has a very strange cameo, and Sam J Jones send himself up exuberantly.

Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild help MacFarlane out with the gags. It’s a great team. (Is Wellesley Wild a real name?) There are far too many gay jokes, probably too many film and TV references and too much mention in their script of toy maker Hasbro, but those are minor quibbles.

Ted 2 has disappointed at the US box office. This is baffling. It does its job well, makes most of its gags work, even the gross-out ones, and stays funny and entertaining. Of course, some won’t like this kind of crude, sometimes foul, humour, and its fun way with drugs. But if you want to judge Ted 2, just measure it against Hot Tub Time Machine 2 or Dumb and Dumber To. Ted brings big guilty laughs back the movies.

With so many homages to film classics in the movie, it’s surprising MacFarlane didn’t call it Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Excellent it is!

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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