Spoiler-Free Movie Review: Ted

Let's get this out of the way now: I don't like Family Guy, and I don't watch American Dad nor The Cleveland Show. Basically, I'm not really a big fan of Seth McFarlene's work. However, I still wanted to see Ted. Maybe it was all the big buzz? The huge box office? The strange appeal of the concept? Either way, I went to see it with a big crowd on Saturday, and here's what I thought about it.

There are some genuinely funny moments in here. The trailer covers a few of them, but a lot of them are saved for the actual movie, fortunately. I won't necessarily spoil them, but a lot of them don't involve unnecessary vulgarity. Unfortunately, the humor in this movie was hit and miss. Seth McFarlene pretty much just wants to see how far he can go with a Talking teddy bear, and he over-indulges to the point where it gets kind of repetitive before the movie ends. Ted is pretty funny at times, though, but he doesn't have to resort to excessive crude humor to be a great character. I will admit that I laughed often, but I sometimes thought to myself,  "How exactly is this  funny?" I'm not saying that the movie isn't filled with laughs-I've definitely enjoyed a lot of it, but the overload of crude and offensive humor got kind of stale, but again, I'm not a big fan of Seth McFarlane's comedic style.

The plot itself is pretty simple: Mark Whalberg must choose between bromance (Ted) and romace (Mila Kunis.) Whalberg and Kunis have really great chemistry, and also some really good comedic timing. I've particularly wanted to see Whalberg in more comedies after seeing the hysterical The Other Guys. A sub plot involving a co-worker (Joel McHale, of Community and The Soup! fame) makes romantic advantages on Kunis. This subplot (co-character creates a love triangle) is pretty overdone, but it wasn't particularly great here. Still, it's not really badly done. The other subplot was a little more interesting. A man (Giovanni Ribisi) wants to purchase the talking teddy bear for his son, but Whalberg refuses. Will he settle down and comply, though?

Overall, Ted is a decent comedy, but fans of Seth McFarlene's works are more likely to enjoy it. And that's not to say that I disliked it. I at least enjoyed it to some extent, and there are even some heartfelt moments in this. This gets a recommendation from me, but just bear-ly (Wakka wakka!)

B-