Pokematic Reviews Ted

So Seth Macfarlane made a movie. How will it be Family Guy bad, Johnny Bravo Good, somewhere in the middle? Let's find out.

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When I first found out about Ted, an R rated comedy from Seth Macfarlane, my initial thoughts were "will this be family guy?"  Then my brother showed me some trailers on YouTube, and things got a little better. Originally my brother and I were going to see it as a last hura for the summer before I went back to college, but we ended up getting lost on the way to the theater, so I didn't get to see it. I was thinking "this will be a rental movie then." But then I got to see it as part of the $1 movies that play at my college, so I got to see it on the big screen.

Now before I get into the details, let me lead with "it's Seth Macfarlane." Now I don't really have that much against the guy. Shoot he and Butch Hartman made Johnny Bravo, one of the best cartoons to have ever aired on Cartoon Network. He also made American Dad, a series that is well written and executed. He's also made garbage like Family Guy and some of those YouTube shorts from "Cavalry of Comedy," or whatever it's called. So with Seth it's kind of a crap shoot if something will be good or bad. Unfortunately, this one kind of falls into the later.

Lets start things out with the story and concept. When I first heard about the concept, I thought "now that's something new." There have been plots before where a child's favorite toy comes to life or is alive in his imagination all over the place, but none have ever shown what happens 20 years later when that toy is alive and what goes on when an adult has a living toy. So the concept was super original as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately that's kind of where the originality ends. As far as everyone is concerned, Ted is just like other humans, just fluffy, and a toy, but is treated like a normal human, so it's really easy to take this original concept and throw together some cliche story. Ted was a celebrity when John, his kid, wished he was alive, so there's a celebrity montage, but then the world stops caring since he's not to super awesome type of celebrity, like Chuck Norris or Nicolas Cage. Fast forward 20 years, and Ted and John are room ates who do everything together. Ted is a dead beat who only gets high and parties with hookers and John works at a car rental place and has a girlfriend Lori, who also lives with John and Ted. On John and Lori's 4th anniversary together, she hints at encouraging Ted to move out, and that it's a little weird for a grown man to still be playing with his teddy bear. But John convinces her otherwise since before her, Ted was his only friend and they've been friends for over 20 years. And she understands, because that's the kind of girlfriend she is. But then they come home, Ted has 4 hookers over, one of them pooped on the floor, so then John comes to the conclusion that Ted needs to find his own place.

Ted ends up getting a job at a grocery store, where he meets someone. Ted also throws a bunch of parties and encourages John to ditch work and Lori to hang out with him. Things start getting bad for John, but now I'm getting into spoiler territory so I'll save that for the end when I'll talk about the sub-plot and the ending. But as I said, it's quite cliche so if you guess you'll likely get it right. Now I'll talk about the humor.

As I mentioned earlier, very Seth Macfarlane, and I mean VERY. The humor is incredibly crude and raunchy. Most of the time I think the humor is just drawn from a teddy bear, a symbol of childhood innocence, cursing like a sailor. I have not heard so many f-bombs since Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and South Park Bigger Longer and Uncut. Then it uses pretty much other word in the book, some of which I have to say I haven't heard in a long time. I will admit that it was fun being in an auditorium full of college kids singing the thunder buddy song, but other than that, really didn't contribute to the humor. Then there's the joke where Ted was seducing his girlfriend for the first time, or hitting on her, or just making and ass of himself, I'm not sure, but if you've seen the trailers, it's when he's humping the cash register, aaaand then it gets more graphic. I won't go into detail, but it involves a snickers bar, and later lotion in some...depictions of what Ted wants to happen. It's not tasteful at all. There's also some anti-Semitic jokes, like when the narrator talks about how "at Christmas time all the kids beat up the Jewish kid in holiday fun." It seems like at every chance Seth gets he makes either a Jew or Hitler joke. I don't know why, those jokes are horrible and tasteless, but he does. If you like super low brow humor, or Family Guy, you'll probably enjoy the humor, but there really isn't much.

Now acting, special effects, and well, everything else, was actually pretty good. There were some tough things the actors had to deal with, mainly talking and interacting with a CGI bear that's 2 ft tall and making it believable. They did a good job at making it feel like Ted was actually there. Anger, sorrow, hope, all well portrayed. John's fear of thunder was a little lacking, but it only happened once and then led into thunder buddies song. Then there was the scene where Ted was playing "guess my girlfriend's name" with John and Mark Wahlberg, John, lists off this really long list of names without taking a breath and doing it really fast. Then when he completes the list, Ted says "none of those," but then John figures out that it was one of those with either a -lee or a -lu, I can't remember exactly, but he goes through the list again adding the suffix to each name in a similar format as before. That was impressive. The guys that animated Ted did a great job at making him look real and act as he would if he was. I don't know if they had a stand in or not when filming, but great job on Ted. Unfortunately that doesn't save it from the bad writing.

Final verdict, if you like Family Guy and low brow raunchy humor, you'll probably enjoy it. If you don't however, there's a good chance not. Movies tell stories and unless you're Avatar, good acting and special effects won't save you from a done a million times story and bad jokes. Keep reading if you want spoilers, but for now this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.




SPOILERS.
Glad you could make it, here I'll talk about the sub plot of an obsessive fan kidnapping Ted and how the ending could have had a major twist. As I mentioned earlier, Ted was celebrity, but is now a has been with some people still remembering him. He and John run into Teds biggest fan at the park early in the movie, and he wants to buy Ted. Of course John says no but takes his information "in case he changes his mind." As with predictable stories, you know this will come back later. At one point when Ted is leaving work he runs into this fan guy in an ally behind the store, and all he wants is a hug, but he's being a real creeper about it. Now near the end of the movie, after John and Lori are on thin ice patching things up sort of, the crazy fan kidnaps Ted, of course this is after Ted admits that he royally screwed up every one's life and they all hate him for it. Then with the news that Ted is in danger, they go to save him. Good thing John kept the guys info from early on in the movie. Now there's a big chase scene, ending at a baseball stadium. Ted, running away from fan man, starts to climb to the light stadium light thing. It's worth noting that he got a cur across his belly earlier, so when crazy fan pulls on his leg, he pulls to hard and ends up ripping Ted in half. John and Lori pick up the pieces, and the stuffing, but then Ted dies telling John that "it's time to grow up," and then the magic sparkles away.

John and Lori take Ted and his pieces back to their apartment, but it's no use, Ted's gone. Now here's where a cliche movie with a normal dead beat friend would have him come back to life after lots of wishing and realizing that life will never be the same again, but it doesn't feel like that. It's raining and thundering, but John isn't scared anymore, he's just sad about losing his best friend, and for the longest time, his only friend. Now if they didn't make it painfully obvious, I probably wouldn't have realized that Ted is John's inability to grow up and be mature, but rather constantly be a kid and immature. It's not BS symbolism when the symbol himself pretty much says "I'm a symbol of John's immaturity, and my death is showing that John is now an adult." If Seth actually killed Ted at the end, it would have been a really good ending. It wouldn't have been the happiest but it would have been much better than the cliche garbage we had the rest of the movie, but no. Lori ends up wishing on a shooting star to bring Ted back to life, just like how John wished on a star all those years ago to bring Ted to life. So instead of having a meaningful ending, Seth cops out and brings Ted back to life, and then John and Lori get married, and then there's an epilogue with all the characters in what's supposed to be funny, but just stupid humor again. The end.