Ted 2‘s What Happens When a Bear’s Just Not Funny

/ June 29, 2015
(From IMDb.com)

(From IMDb.com)

Seth MacFarlane misses the mark so badly with Ted 2 that I didn’t know whether I wanted to put my hands over my eyes or my ears. One of each? No, that wouldn’t work.

His sequel to the comedy about the teddy bear that came alive and pals up with Johnny, the boy whose parents bought him for security all those years ago to become a pot-smoking, woman-ogling, beer-drinking, foul-mouthed Boston idiot is …

I hardly know where to start. I did not see the 2012 original, but I did read that it was the 12th-highest grossing film of that year.

So …

Ted the talking bear has proposed to his girlfriend Tami-Lynn, a stereo-typical bombshell without much going on upstairs played just that way by Jessica Barth.

In fact, under the direction of MacFarlane, who also co-wrote with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wilds as well as his role as voicing Ted, every single element of Ted 2 is a sweeping generalization.

So we see the bear and the broad at their wedding reception, where two big gay guys are guests. Played by Patrick Warburton and Patrick Dorn, these dudes are crass and sex-driven. Later, when they turn up at Comic Con dressed up as super heroes, they’re bullies and violence-driven.

Anyway, they’re not funny.

Mark Wahlberg plays Johnny, Ted’s best man because he’s his best friend because he was the kid who saw him come to life in the original Ted. Johnny’s morose because his wife left him after just six months.

But he’s still boozing and drugging, but just not dating.

Surprise! Tami-Lynn and Ted are poised to march down that same splitsville road a year later because Ted and Johnny are so damn loyal to each other.

None of this is funny.

But hey, if Ted and Tami-Lynn have a baby … Ted’s not getting any … They couldn’t maneuver any sperm out of Tom Brady. Ted’s got plenty to be the donor. But of course things can’t go smoothly at the bank, oh, what a mess.

Not funny, not funny, really not funny.

Maybe they should adopt. Fill out papers. The government notices Ted. Wait! He’s not human. In comes a rookie lawyer, played by the Amanda Seyfried, who was a really great as a beleaguered daughter in HBO’s Big Love, and is the best thing here as a stoner who falls for Johnny.

But she’s not funny either.

MacFarlane somehow talked Morgan Freeman into a small spot as a semi-interested big-shot attorney who takes Ted’s case later because he’s a bear and really oppressed like so many minorities before him.

He’s not funny. And the racial jokes were lame. Any attempts at compassion — like when the evil Turtle played by the Hasbro janitor played by Giovanni Ribissifell gets short-circuited but with perhaps disastrous results — fall haplessly short.

Gay jokes and racial jokes and class jokes and teddy bear jokes, yeah, there’s room in this world for all of that. But they have to be presented with intelligence. Wit. Purpose. Skill.

We have a candidate for Worst Movie of 2015.

Did you see Ted, and if so, what did you think about making a sequel? Can comedies just be crass? Are you a Seth MacFarlane or Mark Wahlberg fan, and why?

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36 thoughts on “Ted 2‘s What Happens When a Bear’s Just Not Funny”

  1. It’s like…
    I just know that you and I like the same stuff, the way you write about movies.
    I don’t get it, either. And I’m sorta awed by people who love stuff like Ted. Like, what is so wrong in their brains or what’s wrong in my own that they find humor when I’m basically repulsed? I can’t imagine dedicating hours of my life to it. I like very little “stupid humor.”
    I didn’t wanna see the first one, and I sure don’t wanna see a sequel. But people do, Mark. THOSE people, lol!

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    • Yeah, I don’t get those things, Joey. Yeesh. It’s like I write about April Fool’s pranks every year. You make others else feel stupid about themselves and you feel good about it? So simillar in my book. Yes, you and I like the same stuff, not this movie.

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  6. Seth McFarland can be funny at times but I can see his humor missing the mark. I think the idea of a grown man and a real life teddy bear is a bit of a stretch . He’s lucky he got one movie out of it. He should have stopped there.

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  9. Didn’t like the first one. Stopped watching it before it finished–have done that for few films. Think McFarlane is talented but over-impressed with himself and juvenile. Think both Wahlberg men are good enough that I will try to watch anything they’re in. Doesn’t hurt that they’re easy on the eyes.
    🙂

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  13. My youngest daughter and I went to see first “Ted” because we like Mark W. The humor was what you said but we laughed. I mainly liked it when the Flash with his Fabio styped hair showed up. Memory “bolt” for me 😉

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