Trailer Tracking: ‘Rise of the Guardians,’ ‘Looper,’ ‘Ted’

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Movie: “Ted”

Red Band:

Green Band:

Best Parts of the Trailers: It’s always good to be reminded how funny Mark Wahlberg can be; any scene with a teddy bear beating up Max Payne; Wahlberg’s epic “white trash girl name” list in the red band trailer

Worst Parts of the Trailers: The “that teddy bear just said f***” shock wears off quickly; the moment you realize MacFarlane is just doing his “Peter Griffin” voice

OUR TAKE: Here we are with yet ANOTHER high concept idea – a child’s teddy bear comes to life and eventually becomes the grown child’s hard swearing, hard partying roommate. The visuals alone almost sell the concept. Watching tough guy Mark Wahlberg walk down the street nonchalantly bullshitting with a walking, talking teddy bear – that image itself probably sold the studio on the comedic potential of “Ted,” the very first feature film from “Family Guy” impresario Seth MacFarlane. However, for such a crazy concept, “Ted” feels like a very comfortable fit for MacFarlane’s comedic sensibilities. Like his three TV series – “Family Guy”, “American Dad,” and “The Cleveland Show” – “Ted” features caustic, borderline vulgar humor, back-and-forth buddy comedy, and a creature who normally wouldn’t speak – MacFarlane LOVES talking babies and animals - speaking in a funny, distinctive accent. From any other filmmaker, a movie about a living teddy bear would seem completely out of left field. (Remember what happened to Spielberg with “A.I.”?) But, from MacFarlane, it just seems par for the course, particularly since the voice of Ted the bear sounds UNCANNILY like Peter Griffin, the lead character of “Family Guy.”

I will say that I find it amusing that, realizing how much MacFarlane’s audience loves his racier material, the studio decided to release a red band and a green band trailer for “Ted” almost simultaneously. And the structure of the trailers is really interesting. Typically, if a studio releases a red-band trailer, the subsequent green band, or cleaner, trailer is just the exact same trailer with most of the swear words and breasts edited out. For “Ted,” however, the red and green band trailers are completely separate entities, using almost entirely different footage. It’s an interesting choice. The red band trailer is very joke-heavy. It revels in not explaining the origins of Ted the swearing teddy bear and instead just wants you to pay attention to how funny it is seeing Mark Wahlberg pal around with a CGI bear. The rhythm of the trailer is very quick, very fast – it’s a joke delivery system. And, in my opinion, the best gag is Wahlberg’s uncanny ability to rattle of white-trash names off the top of his head. It’s not a vulgar joke, but it’s a very “Family Guy”-esque joke, and the red-band trailer does feel a bit like a gag highlight reel.

Alternately, the green band trailer is much, much more story- and character-driven. Yeah, it’s still funny and silly and out there, but it does a much better job of establishing all of the characters and giving you a sense of what actually happens in the film. Which is weird because green band trailers are almost NEVER better than red band trailers, but the green band for “Ted” really does offer the best of both worlds. It gives us the characters and stakes of the piece, but it also leaves room for a lot of wonderfully juvenile gags – like the hotel room teddy bear brawl or Wahlberg getting a TV dropped on his crotch.

So, while “Ted” presents probably one of the more interesting examples of the differing effectiveness of red and green band trailers, that doesn’t get at the question of “Does “Ted” look funny or not?” At the moment, my vote is “Yes.” I’m not a huge “Family Guy” fan, but the Boston drawl coming out of that bear makes me laugh and I think Wahlberg can be a fantastic comedic actor when he’s paired with the right material. I am a little nervous that the movie will more closely resemble the red band trailer than the green one – that it’ll just be a series of one “Family Guy”-esque joke after another without enough story or characters to make it into a real movie – but, if I can believe in a talking teddy bear co-star, I can give “Ted” some latitude for now.

TRAILER OUTLOOK: Definitely funny. But can the joke of a swearing teddy bear keep our interest for two hours?

By TOM BURNS
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
tom@hollywoodchicago.com