The trouble with hype, success or any variation thereupon is translating it from one medium to the other. Even if the medium is very similar to the original, for some reason the chances of continuing the success is hit or miss. Thankfully we don't have to worry about that with the debut feature film of Seth MacFarlane.
Ted can basically be described as a reverse Peter Pan; about a boy that DID grow up as well as a talking teddy bear that also grew up to become a foul mouthed, bong smoking, drug taking, alcoholic wannabe hipster.
It's hard to describe Ted and give it its kudos as it's a surprisingly well written comedy; a post on The Age website recently even mentioned that a lot of parents are taking their children to it; even as some as 8 (bare in mind that Ted is rated MA15+) so it's obvious the movie is at least somewhat riding on the brand appeal of MacFarlane; who as creator of Family Guy, American Dad! and (somewhat dubiously in my opinion) The Cleveland Show, is responsible for some of the funniest and smartest shows on TV of recent times.
But even with the brand appeal and hype of the MacFarlane brand, Ted stands up as a solid movie that has heaps of laugh out loud moments, as well as a plot that makes sense and doesn't suffer from any "hurry the hell up and get on it with it" moments.
To be honest the biggest "problem"I had with this movie was the casting of Mark Wahlberg as the adult John Bennett; who as a child wished he had a talking teddy bear. While I can't fault his performance itself, I just didn't see any romantic connection between him and Mila Kunis who played his girlfriend Lori Collins. While they both are brilliant actors; I just didn't find it plausible that these two would be dating. Secondly; what the hell is up with his accent? I know it's supposed to be a Boston accent but for the entire duration of the movie I was wondering if it was meant to be a joke and if it was going to be acknowledge in any way.
Having said that; I could still overlook it and enjoy the movie and apparently so could the sold out session at the Sun Theatre who were consistently laughing out loud for the entire duration of the movie.
Rating 4/5
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| The Thunder Buddies song! |