Tuesday 28 August 2012

Ted

After a decade of Family Guy and American Dad, Seth McFarlane finally makes his directorial debut on the big screen. However, as with any episode of Family Guy, the reality is a mixed bag of gags, with equal measures of hits and misses.

This is a shame because, on paper, Ted should be an instant hit.

The concept driving the film is a truly original idea: young John's wish is granted and his teddy bear comes to life. But then John grows up (Mark Wahlberg) and he still has his walking, talking teddy bear as a best friend. McFarlane's writing explores the consequences of this scenario, both the dramatic and the comedic: what affect would this have on John's relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis)? How can John act his age with his teddy bear in tow? What would happen when the teddy bear reaches the legal drinking age? Unfortunately, the drama is often handled better than the comedy.


Much of the comedy is hoped to be generated by Ted himself. Sticking with the Family Guy formula, McFarlane aims to produce laughs by having a human partnered with a sidekick that shouldn't do adult things... but does. We have seen this with Family Guy's Brian and Stewie: a dog and a baby that drink, smoke, swear, fight, crack wise and have sex. Ted follows suit. Admittedly, seeing a teddy bear raise its middle-finger, say the F-word and smoke a bong in the trailer was hilarious. But with a feature length film, the joke soon gets old.

The comedy is stop-start. Some jokes land but many fall flat. 

Highlights include Ted's failed attempts to get fired, Mila Kunis picking up poo, McFarlane's trademark pop culture references, Ted squaring off with a chicken and Mark Wahlberg in general, who needs to be given more comedy roles. We also get Sam Jones (the original Flash Gordon) playing himself at a house party, necking shots, snorting cocaine, tripping out, fighting a disgruntled Chinese neighbour ("Miiing!") and overall just being an ageing Hollywood bad-ass.

But the lowlights include Patrick Stewart's opening voiceover which fails to get the film started, a wasted Joel McHale as Mila Kunis' sleazy boss and crude, loud moments such as when John farts in a restaurant. Chaotic, see-what-sticks comedy is fine in a long-running TV show like Family Guy. But with a film, when you only get 110 minutes, you need to have all killer and less filler.

That said, chaotic comedy can work on the bigscreen, as seen with Anchorman and 21 Jump Street (which retains the crown of Comedy of the Year), but only if the gag rate is high. However, McFarlane chooses to give equal weight to the dramatic scenes exploring John and Lori's turbulent relationship. This is not necessarily a bad thing because these scenes are well-written and well-acted. But it does put extra pressure on the comedy, which, as noted, does not always deliver.

Nevertheless, maybe this is being unfair. 

In many ways, Ted is the Avengers of comedy films: highly-anticipated and never going to please everyone. After all, this is Seth McFarlane's first feature film and it was never going to live up to the astronomically high standards demanded by Family Guy fans. As such, it is important to be clear: Ted is a superior comedy. It is certainly funnier than the tiresome rom-coms and formulaic Ben Stiller comedies that are churned out every year. It is just testament to McFarlane's reputation as a TV comedy don that we expected some more belly-laughs.

But McFarlane can walk away from this proudly. And based on the potential on offer here, both McFarlane and Ted deserve another outing on the big screen.

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