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"TED"
(2012) (Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis) (R)

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QUICK TAKE:
Comedy: A 35-year-old man repeatedly allows his friendship with his self-aware and fully alive teddy bear from his childhood to get in the way of his relationship with his longtime girlfriend.
PLOT:
John Bennett (MARK WAHLBERG) is a 35-year-old car rental employee who long ago wished that a teddy bear he received at the age of eight would come alive. The wish came true and ever since then John and Ted (voice of SETH MacFARLANE) have been inseparable. That's something of a growing sore point for John's live-in girlfriend, Lori Collins (MILA KUNIS), who's put up with this unique situation for the past four years.

For while Ted was once something of a national celebrity -- what with being a talking and opinionated teddy bear -- he's now a crass and profane sort who has no problem repeatedly convincing John to be a slacker and drink beer and get high with him. That hasn't been lost on Lori's rich boss, Rex (JOEL McHALE), who thinks he can convince her to dump John and start dating him.

Someone else who has sights on getting their hands on someone is Donny (GIOVANNI RIBISI), a deranged and creepy father who wants to kidnap Ted for the enjoyment of his son, Robert (AEDIN MINCKS), even if Ted isn't your typical cute and cuddly teddy bear, what with his foul mouth, substance abuse and a sexual relationship with his white trash quasi girlfriend, Tami-Lynn (JESSICA BARTH).

As that plays out, Lori give John an ultimatum of choosing between her and Ted, a predicament where John knows the right thing to do, but can't easily forgo his longtime friendship with his special friend.

OUR TAKE: 4 out of 10
Despite writing movie reviews for a family friendly website that warns parents about the content found in movies, I'm no prude. I can laugh at dirty and inappropriate jokes, and some of my favorite movies of all time contain more than their share of decidedly grown-up material. Yet, on a broader sense, I firmly believe that the overall cultural debasing of American entertainment over the decades -- be that in music, on TV or at the movies -- hasn't done audiences any favors.

In fact, beyond the debate about how such content affects a young person's mind (heck, how it also impacts the adult one over time), there's the simple fact that when entertainers have the cultural shackles removed, they're generally less creative. Yes, there are exceptions, such as the late great George Carlin who had an undeniable artistry with his profanity-based "wordsmithery." For the most part, however, the fewer restraints, the lower the level of artistic creativity.

Case in point is this week's release of "Ted," a comedy about a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking, lady chasing teddy bear who was spawned from the creative loins of Seth MacFarlane. While you might not know that name if you're not a hard-core fan boy follower of his, the successful Hollywood hyphenate (creator, writer, producer, singer, vocal performer, etc.) is the guy fully or partially responsible for the TV shows "Family Guy," "American Dad!" and "The Cleveland Show."

I'll admit I'm not a fan of any of those shows, but I've seen clips from them and there's obvious wit and creativity on display. And while some of their episodes have pushed the boundaries of what many would consider decent material (especially since they're animated and thus more likely to draw kids to watch them, even if they're not entirely designed for younger viewers), they've still had to conform to certain FCC restrictions.

But what if one were to take similar material and transform it into a feature length, R-rated film with next to no such boundaries? The hilarity should be amplified, right? Alas, that's not the case with MacFarlane's latest and his first live-action offering. Yes, there are some genuine laughs to be had and amusing to bizarre cameos, non sequiturs and flights of creative fancy. But the more effective ones occur early in the film (including having Patrick Stewart as our opening narrator) before the material gets too old, repetitive or simply dries up in the second half.

And much of that stems from the title character, yet another non-human, but wise-cracking and sardonic creation from MacFarlane that he also voices. While doing so in his career has made him and Fox a boatload of cash, most everyone but his accountant, the network TV executives and the fan boys would agree that it's time to retire that shtick and move on to something else. Yes, talking animals and other non-human characters have long been a staple of entertainment fodder, but MacFarlane's over-used his quota. Perhaps the computer-animated Ted will be his last hoorah in that field, and he hopes to go out with an anything goes conclusion.

Only time will tell, but it's clear that being given the opportunity to have his creation drop the F-bomb, smoke pot, have sex with human women and more has lessened the creative output. While I went in with low expectations and figured the 106-some minute film would feature material designed to entertain male adolescents and the arrested development victims of the world, I figured there'd still be plenty to laugh at.

There is, at least for a short while, but everything related to Ted the character is one-note and rather quickly begins to wear on its welcome. The same holds true for MacFarlane's initially amusing but then increasingly odd fascination with the campy 1980 movie "Flash Gordon" and particularly its long-lost star, Sam Jones. In fact, there's so much material regarding him and the film that one would think the filmmaker has an unhealthy obsession with both, and that initial joke ultimately gets run into the ground as well.

Given all of the freedom that the cinema gives him, you'd think MacFarlane and co-writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild could have come up with a better storyline. In short, a 35-year-old man (a game Mark Wahlberg) is one of those aforementioned arrested development types who's yet to grown up. And that's mainly due to living from the age of 8 with our titular subject. Like a devil hovering over his shoulder, the bear always manages to lure John into doing something he shouldn't, all in the name of "C'mon, it's gonna be fun" slackery.

For reasons only believable in the fantasy world of MacFarlane's fan base, this loser has managed to attractive the lovely Mila Kunis (or at least the character she plays) as his girlfriend of four years. Had she sniffed glue as a child one might expect her to go along with having John as her boyfriend and Ted as their perpetual, live-in third wheel, but she's portrayed as an otherwise smart, career-minded professional. Of course, we're discussing a movie about a talking teddy bear, so I guess realism has no choice but to take a backseat.

In any event, she's finally reached her tipping point and gives her boyfriend the ultimatum of choosing between her and the bear. What, oh what is the man-child supposed to do, especially when pot and later Flash Gordon himself serve themselves up as good-time distractions? In lieu of actually doing something interesting with that premise, the filmmakers instead throw in various subplots to fill out the script.

The oddest one features Giovanni Ribisi as a deranged father who wants to kidnap the bear for his creepy son, and they take up ever greater and increasingly depressing amounts of screen time in the film's second half. There's also a lower level subplot where Joel McHale plays Kunis' boss who won't take no from her regarding his perpetual romantic interest in her at work. We also have brief material featuring Patrick Warburton as Wahlberg's coworker who may or may not be into a rough and tumble gay lifestyle and Matt Walsh as Wahlberg's boss with an unhealthy obsession with actor Tom Skerritt (who finally shows up in the film looking like he'd rather be anywhere but in it).

Throw in MacFarland's usual array of equal opportunity offensiveness (there are jokes about gays, Jews, Mexicans, fat kids and -- more distressingly as neither is funny -- childhood cancer and Lou Gehrig's Disease), the occasional nudity and the unleashing of boundary pushing sexual material, and I'm guessing MacFarland's fan boys will eat it all up.

While I occasionally laughed here and there (a very violent fight between Wahlberg and his bear admittedly cracked me up because it's so far over the top and unexpected), I was surprised by the overall low number and quality of attempted laughs throughout the film. Perhaps if saddled with a lower MPAA rating, the filmmaker might have been forced to resort to greater and more effective creativity. Unchained, he's like a kid run amuck in a candy store, hyped up and thinking he's funny when more often than not he isn't. "Ted" rates as a 4 out of 10.




Reviewed June 26, 2012 / Posted June 29, 2012


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