Nordling here.
Straight up, I'm a fan of Seth MacFarlane's FAMILY GUY. Yes, the show sometimes relies too heavily on pop culture references, but when it works, it makes me laugh, and that's what I want from an animated Sunday night show. As far as AMERICAN DAD and THE CLEVELAND SHOW, I can take or leave them. They're sporadically funny. But FAMILY GUY is fairly consistent for me and even though a lot of the jokes are heavily telegraphed and play for the cheap seats, I'm still entertained.
So, yeah, I enjoy the comedy stylings of Seth MacFarlane for the most part. He can be crude, low-brow, too dependent on movie geek culture - I'd agree with all of that. But in the end he makes me laugh more often than not, and so does TED, his directorial debut. It's funny a hell of a lot more times than it isn't, and the story has a sweet sentimentality that doesn't feel forced, and it just confirms something I've suspected for quite some time - Mark Wahlberg is a comedy genius.
No, I'm not kidding. But I should have called it as early on as BOOGIE NIGHTS - for Wahlberg to sell a line like "What can you expect when you're on top? You know? It's like Napoleon. When he was the king, you know, people were just constantly trying to conquer him, you know, in the Roman Empire. So, it's history repeating itself all over again." and make Dirk sound so profoundly dumb and yet so endearing takes serious skill. All the way through his career, through his Oscar-nominated performance in THE DEPARTED - "I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy" - up to and including THE OTHER GUYS, Wahlberg has worked humor into his performances in a way that feels genuine and doesn't seem artificial to the character he's playing. Add the fact that in TED he has to work opposite a motion-captured, Seth MacFarlane played teddy bear, Wahlberg has a real sense of the absurd and knows just how far he can take a character for comedy.
As a little boy, John Bennett (Wahlberg) was picked on, and had no friends. One Christmas, he makes a wish that his new toy, a teddy bear, would be real and be his best friend forever. And as Patrick Stewart's narration tells us, there's nothing more powerful than a child's wish and so Ted comes to life. I really liked how Ted isn't kept secret from the world of the film - in TED, it's considered a kind of miracle that Ted is really, truly alive, but as time passes, his celebrity fades, and eventually Ted's just a guy (albeit a plush guy) hanging out with John and his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis), smoking a bong and watching the 1980s FLASH GORDON for the hundredth time. John is content - his job may suck but it pays the bills, he's got his best friend, a girlfriend who loves him, and he's set.
But it's time to take his relationship with Lori to the next level - she doesn't want to just live with John and his teddy bear, smoking weed every day; she wants a real relationship, and that means Ted has to move out and find his own way. But the bond between John and Ted is too strong, and Ted keeps pushing the limits of John's relationship with Lori. Meanwhile, a truly strange father/son duo (Giovanni Ribisi and Aedin Mincks) want Ted as their very own toy, while Lori's co-worker Rex (Joel McHale) has his sights on her.
What's great about TED is MacFarlane's fearlessness with the jokes - some of them do fall flat, but about 80% of them don't and that's a terrific ratio. One particular sequence, at a house party Ted throws that ends up getting a true 1980s movie icon to show up, is hilarious from beginning to end (I don't dare spoil - if you're curious enough you'll likely figure out who it is, but the look on Mark Wahlberg's face is utterly priceless). But thematically, TED has things to say about the juvenilization of men today, the refusal to grow up, and even our overdependence on nostalgia. It's medicine, but MacFarlane gives it a candy-coating that makes it all go down very smoothly.
The supporting cast is terrific as well - of course Joel McHale is funny, anyone who's seen COMMUNITY or THE SOUP knows that, but Giovanni Ribisi plays a man who is so worshipful of his son and of Ted that he crosses the line into the truly bizarre. I don't think I'll ever get the image of Ribisi dancing to a Tiffany video out of my mind. Mila Kunis is lovely and you would think the girlfriend role would be a thankless one, but she's also genuinely funny and a well-rounded character. She is John's stable force that he needs in his life, and Kunis gives the role (and the movie) some needed weight.
The CGI work for Ted is jaw-droppingly good. It's a cliche to say, but you really do forget you're watching computer animation about five seconds into it. From the tufts of stuffing and fuzz to the plastic eyes, Ted is visually stunning, but MacFarlane treats him as a real character and not just an effect. It also hels that MacFarlane voices and acts out the part - sure, his voice sounds like Peter Griffin, but who cares, MacFarlane is riotously funny but knows when to turn on the emotion when he needs to. One sequence, where Ted and John finally fight it out, is shot with all the style of a BOURNE movie and yet you never doubt that it's Wahlberg wrestling with a teddy bear, and both Wahlberg and MacFarlane absolutely sell it.
TED is that comedy that almost completely works; when it doesn't it's a rare moment when a joke falls flat, but the story is always interesting and the performances are wonderful. Pound for pound, this is likely the funniest movie you'll see this summer, although considering the summer so far, that doesn't mean much. Still, TED wears its heart on its felt sleeve, and even when TED is filthy and crude, you can still feel that heart beating. Highly recommended.
