I normally start my reviews of sequels by offering commentary about the original film, but I can’t do that for “Ted 2” because I never saw “Ted.” I wasn’t gung-ho to watch the sequel, either, but I’d seen everything except “Magic Mike XXL,” and I wasn’t in the mood to watch Channing Tatum strut his washboard abs for two hours.
“Ted 2” heralds the return of the potty-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear named Ted and his best friend, John (played by Mark Wahlberg). You might ask how a teddy bear can curse and smoke wholesale quantities of weed, and I would tell you John wished him to life when he was a child, and they have remained best friends to this day.
So, what are they up to in the sequel? Ted has married Tami-Lynn, but their marriage had gone south. To rekindle their romance, they decide to have a baby. Since Ted lacks the equipment needed to make his contribution, they decide to adopt. This plan goes terribly awry, as the adoption agency not only denies Ted and his wife the right to adopt but also declares Ted to be mere property rather than a human being. The 90 minutes that follow involve Ted’s quest to be declared human.
Ho hum. The story is a contrivance, but what really matters is whether or not the laughs are there. Sadly, they’re not.
Oh, I laughed a few times. The bit where Ted and John ask their lawyer, Samantha, what she has against Scott Fitzgerald (because she keeps saying “F. Scott Fitzgerald” in reference to the author of “The Great Gatsby”) had me in stitches. There’s also a running joke about being two clicks away from a particular kind of seamy material (which I will not mention) on the Internet that’s pretty funny, too.
But for every joke that works, writer and director Seth McFarlane (who also voices Ted) serves several duds. Scene after scene, the movie builds to a punch line, delivers, and then flat lines. Part of the problem is the editing, which lags when it should be punchier, but more than that, much of the material just isn’t funny.
Worse, the tone of “Ted 2” is all over the place. The segues from the profane, politically incorrect material to the sincere, more sentimental scenes are jarring. Bits like the one in which John knocks over a shelf of sperm samples at a fertility clinic and gets covered in “product” don’t coexist well with the Capra-esque courtroom scenes in which Ted’s lawyers wax romantic about what being human really means.
Perhaps McFarlane is even more subversive than he appears to be. Yes, he pokes fun at certain minorities, and gets away with it, which is a pretty outrageous stunt, but what about the weird blend of vulgarity and schmaltz? I think McFarlane is showing us the two sides of our culture, and ribbing the conservatives, whose traditions and values mean little to millennials.
Am I overthinking the movie? Perhaps. But surely McFarlane didn’t mean for us to take the scene in which African American actor Morgan Freeman references the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment in his argument about declaring a profanity-spewing animated bear a human being seriously. Surely he’s joking.
If he is, it’s too bad his clever subtext exists below several layers of lame material. Few people will bother to dig through it to the real meat of the film.
Two stars out of four. Rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, and drug use.
David Laprad is the assistant editor of the Hamilton County Herald and an award-winning columnist and photographer. Contact him at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.
Few laughs in
‘Ted 2’
I
normally start my reviews of sequels by offering commentary about the original film, but I can’t do that for “Ted 2” because I never saw “Ted.” I wasn’t gung-ho to watch the sequel, either, but I’d seen everything except “Magic Mike XXL,” and I wasn’t in the mood to watch Channing Tatum strut his washboard abs for two hours.
“Ted 2” heralds the return of the potty-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear named Ted and his best friend, John (played by Mark Wahlberg). You might ask how a teddy bear can curse and smoke wholesale quantities of weed, and I would tell you John wished him to life when he was a child, and they have remained best friends to this day.
So, what are they up to in the sequel? Ted has married Tami-Lynn, but their marriage had gone south. To rekindle their romance, they decide to have a baby. Since Ted lacks the equipment needed to make his contribution, they decide to adopt. This plan goes terribly awry, as the adoption agency not only denies Ted and his wife the right to adopt but also declares Ted to be mere property rather than a human being. The 90 minutes that follow involve Ted’s quest to be declared human.
Ho hum. The story is a contrivance, but what really matters is whether or not the laughs are there. Sadly, they’re not.
Oh, I laughed a few times. The bit where Ted and John ask their lawyer, Samantha, what she has against Scott Fitzgerald (because she keeps saying “F. Scott Fitzgerald” in reference to the author of “The Great Gatsby”) had me in stitches. There’s also a running joke about being two clicks away from a particular kind of seamy material (which I will not mention) on the Internet that’s pretty funny, too.
But for every joke that works, writer and director Seth McFarlane (who also voices Ted) serves several duds. Scene after scene, the movie builds to a punch line, delivers, and then flat lines. Part of the problem is the editing, which lags when it should be punchier, but more than that, much of the material just isn’t funny.
Worse, the tone of “Ted 2” is all over the place. The segues from the profane, politically incorrect material to the sincere, more sentimental scenes are jarring. Bits like the one in which John knocks over a shelf of sperm samples at a fertility clinic and gets covered in “product” don’t coexist well with the Capra-esque courtroom scenes in which Ted’s lawyers wax romantic about what being human really means.
Perhaps McFarlane is even more subversive than he appears to be. Yes, he pokes fun at certain minorities, and gets away with it, which is a pretty outrageous stunt, but what about the weird blend of vulgarity and schmaltz? I think McFarlane is showing us the two sides of our culture, and ribbing the conservatives, whose traditions and values mean little to millennials.
Am I overthinking the movie? Perhaps. But surely McFarlane didn’t mean for us to take the scene in which African American actor Morgan Freeman references the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment in his argument about declaring a profanity-spewing animated bear a human being seriously. Surely he’s joking.
If he is, it’s too bad his clever subtext exists below several layers of lame material. Few people will bother to dig through it to the real meat of the film.
Two stars out of four. Rated R for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, and drug use.
David Laprad is the assistant editor of the Hamilton County Herald and an award-winning columnist and photographer. Contact him at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.