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Sunday, July 1, 2012

MOVIE REVIEW
Ted
A Big Boy And His Teddy Bear, Stuck In The '80s

Mark Wahlberg as John and Ted the teddy bear, voiced by "Ted" co-writer and director Seth MacFarlane.  Universal Pictures/Iloura
    
by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Sunday, July 1, 2012
With all the fervor and passion of a man who can't help but sneak a peek at the sports scores when his wife or girlfriend is trying to turn him on, in Seth MacFarlane's comedy "Ted" John (Mark Wahlberg) forever falls prey to offers his lifelong teddy bear pal Ted (voiced by the director).  For John, Ted, a raunchy, foul-mouthed plush toy, has been the "new sexy" for years since a childhood wish, distracting John from all logic and reason to go on misadventures involving his 1980s hero Flash Gordon, parties and drugs.  Meanwhile, John's girlfriend of four years, Lori (Mila Kunis), is tired of having to compete with a talking teddy bear for John's attention.

"Ted", written by Mr. MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, isn't an especially good film by any stretch, but at times it is a hilarious equal opportunity offender.  It's sly, playful and subversive.  In scene after scene you feel "Ted" ratchet up the ante with its potty-mouth and outrageousness.  The only question becomes, can what would be excellent as a television series -- Mr. MacFarlane is the architect of "Family Guy" -- sustain itself as a film for 100 minutes?  The answer is, just about, although this unruly laugh fest peters out in chuckles and chortles in the last 20 minutes largely because of an irrelevant subplot involving Giovanni Ribisi, forgettable here as a covetous parent.  The scenes with Mr. Ribisi don't belong in "Ted" and drag it to places its material needn't go.

Mr. Wahlberg, a muscular but sappy presence as John, a rental car employee, is silly putty in Ted's hands.  Had John said to Ted, "I wish I knew how to quit you," it would have been perfectly in line with the film's spiky savoir faire and juvenile humor.  A versatile actor, Mr. Wahlberg (great in "Contraband", "The Fighter" and "The Departed") is completely in his element here as a man-child who lives firmly in the accoutrements and cutesy corniness of the 1980s.  Missing are jokes about Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch, an early 1990s hip hop outfit fronted by the actor.  Ted could have done an impression of Marky Mark singing "Good Vibrations" as opposed to the somewhat stagnant and standard final minutes of the film, its weakest aspects.

Ms. Kunis plays the straight man role to Ted's clowning, and as Lori she has to fend off the sexual harassment and advances of Rex (Joel McHale), her lanky lizard of a boss.  She complains about John's increasingly obsessive devotion to his teddy bear as a grown man.  Can you blame her?  John has little semblance of a social life outside the wild parties, and Ted works for a boss who rewards his progressively cruder behavior, in some of the film's funniest episodes. 

Essentially a series of comedy sketches, "Ted" drifts whenever the center of the film isn't the title character or the relationship between John and Ted.  There's a small-scale tidiness in the film's untidiness and abruptness as it throws around 1980s pop culture references, and the droll narration by Patrick Stewart is also funny, but by film's end a device that overstays its welcome.

The film's high note may be is its cameos by several stars.  Those wink-wink moments are played for genuine laughter, polite touches amidst the impolite and relentlessly rude banter.  All in all though, "Ted" works as a raucous, rollicking fun ride, even if there are a few distractions along the way.

With: Bretton Manley, Patrick Warburton, Jessica Barth, Matt Walsh, Aedin Mincks, Ralph Garman, Alex Borstein.

 "Ted" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, and some drug use.  The film's running time is one hour and 46 minutes. 

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