Ted 2: A Hilarious Mess?
A blend of successful “adult” jokes with a flawed plot, too pretentious for a farcical comedy about a “stoned” teddy bear.
As John (Mark Wahlberg) deals with his divorce from Lori, his best plush friend Ted marries the beautiful Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). However, the teddy bear’s marital bliss is short-lived. Without a child in the house, the couple starts to get on each other’s nerves, but they can’t have a baby because Ted has nothing to conceive with, and Tami-Lynn turns out to be infertile. When the couple decides to adopt, they discover that Ted is not officially considered a person, and therefore he has no right not only to adopt but also to work, have credit cards, and get married. Having lost everything, the teddy bear decides to defend his rights in court, and Ted and John turn to a trainee lawyer, Samantha (Amanda Seyfried), for help because more experienced lawyers are beyond their means.
To write the legal scenes of the film, screenwriter Alec Sulkin watched all the episodes of the long-running legal show “Law & Order.”
Three years ago, the creator of the animated sitcom “Family Guy,” Seth MacFarlane, debuted as a feature film director and hit the jackpot. The farce about the friendship of a 35-year-old slacker with a sentient and sexually obsessed teddy bear, which cost $50 million, grossed $550 million worldwide and became one of the most successful adult comedies in film history. The film was destined for a sequel. And although MacFarlane didn’t immediately get to it (last year, he released the much less successful comic western “A Million Ways to Die in the West”), he didn’t put the project off for too long and shot “Ted 2” as soon as he found the time.
For the barn scene, the filmmakers visited over 300 real barns but ultimately decided to build their own and artificially age it.
The second film starts as strongly and funnily as the first. Perhaps even stronger and funnier. Of course, decent and clever jokes in “Ted 2” are hard to come by. But the beauty of the series is that it’s a movie about a grown man and a teddy bear who goof off together, drink like horses, smoke weed, and joke about sex, movies, and celebrities. And the first third of the film more than provides all of that – as well as offering strange but hilarious scenes like the episode in which Liam Neeson comes to Ted’s store and spends a long time figuring out whether he has the right to buy sweets that are advertised as “only for children.”
The Plot Thickens (and Thins)
But just as you decide that the film will be continuously “on fire,” the picture shifts gears and turns into a lengthy legal discussion of the rights of a teddy bear (with occasional breaks for full-fledged humor). For a farcical comedy, these scenes are too serious, with constant mentions of court cases about the struggle for the rights of black people, and for a somewhat serious drama, they are too absurd. It looks as strange as if the residents of “Comedy Club” stood in the middle of a performance and began to discuss the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops in 1968. It’s neither funny nor sharp and relevant. Nevertheless, the film devotes so much time to this struggle as if its creators are really concerned about the fate of teddy bears who cannot marry and work.
Moreover, during debates and discussions, the characters regularly spout complete nonsense. For example, Seyfried’s character notes that Ted should come up with a last name, but American laws do not require this, and MacFarlane, who constantly parodies celebrities, should know about the existence of the singer Cher and the magician Teller, whose full official names consist of one word.
Missed Opportunities
But if Samantha’s words can still be attributed to her inexperience, it is completely incomprehensible why her senior and experienced colleague, played by Morgan Freeman, sometimes says that to prove his humanity, Ted must benefit society, and then claims that John’s willingness to risk his life for him testifies to the teddy bear’s humanity. After all, even children know that human rights do not depend on whether this person is a saint or a scoundrel (that’s why they are “human rights,” not “rights of a good person”), and that people sometimes risk their lives for inanimate objects or abstract concepts (“love for the Motherland”). And these lines are clearly not jokes. The film tries to lecture the audience, but instead of something smart or at least true, it offers stupid nonsense.
Perhaps the point is that even comic scripts should not be written under the influence. And the characters of the film (including Samantha) so often and fiercely “puff” that it is difficult to doubt that its authors also abused something herbal. As a result, the film has many successful “random” jokes, almost or not at all tied to the main narrative (for example, the scene in which the characters “troll” comedians from an improvisational theater). But when the film tries to tell a coherent story, it does it as “well” as any storyteller whose thoughts are confused, blurred, and jump on each other.
Lingering Issues
What else is wrong with the film? The romantic line between John and Samantha is written into the plot for show, and it lacks even minimal credibility. Donnie’s “cunning plan,” the villain from the first film, is even dumber and less funny than in the film three years ago. Finally, not all of the film’s jokes related to celebrities will be easy to understand in some countries. Since the film mocks not only movie stars but also American athletes and TV presenters, who are known only to dedicated researchers of Western mass culture. However, fans of MacFarlane are probably already used to the fact that his jokes need to be listened to with “Wikipedia” open.
The sequel to the bear’s adventures has lost all the “goodies” of the original film: bold mockery, tough but intelligent humor, plot density, meaning, the wow effect of an ожившего plush friend, finally! All this has been replaced by contrived giggles, a disjointed story, and the visible fatigue of all participants in what is happening on the screen.