Film Review: ‘Ted 2’ is a Funnier Film Than it Deserves to Be

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

CHICAGO – While it’s cruder and it can’t quite match the original “Ted,” “Ted 2” is still funnier than it has any right to be. It is unmistakably a Seth MacFarlane production, and there are a million reasons why this movie shouldn’t work, chief among them a plot that attempts to plop a foul mouthed talking teddy bear into a moralistic legal parable about civil rights. But I can’t deny I laughed throughout, almost despite myself.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

It’s less a movie than a collection of scenes strung back to back. After an elaborate and largely joyless Busby Berkeley inspired title sequence, the plot revolves around Ted and new wife Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). When they try to adopt a baby, the government challenges Ted’s personhood and declares him property instead. So Ted and buddy Mark Wahlberg enlist a pot-smoking civil rights lawyer (Amanda Seyfried) to take his case, and win Ted back his basic human rights.  

Seth MacFarlane throws in a lot of racial humor as they try to make the parallel between Ted’s plight and slavery (complete with obligatory viewing of “Roots”). It’s a desperate attempt to both push buttons and provide some narrative cover – as it gives MacFarlane a stage to make courtroom wisecracks in one scene, while also making gags about the prevalence of black penises on the internet in another.   

Continue reading for Spike Walters’ full review of “Ted 2”

Mark Wahlberg and Ted (Voice of Seth McFarlane) in ‘Ted 2’
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Continue reading for Spike Walters’ full review of “Ted 2”