All together now: FLASH! Ahhhh-AHHHHH…
There’s been a trend amongst comedy movies of the last decade that focuses almost entirely on man-children: grown men in their thirties who have no real job, no life aspirations… they just spend the majority of their time either drunk or high, watching movies and obsessing over fixations from their childhood. They are - essentially - bums. Then a girl comes along… The perfect girl. She’s beautiful, kinda dorky and somehow taken with our loser/slob of a hero (in other words, completely unrealistic). But then the inevitable comes along, our slacker hero eventually coming to a crossroads: does he risk losing the girl, or make the most important decision of his life and finally grow the fuck up?
Ted isn’t much different from your typical Knocked Up/The Hangover/40 Year-Old Virgin in that regard. I mean, sure - there’s the talking teddy bear - but from a story standpoint, it doesn’t bring anything new to the table. So if Ted is to distinguish itself from the others, it must do so through it’s own sense of style. Which, I’m happy to report, it does so pretty well - writer/director Seth MacFarlane doesn’t always land his jokes, but the ones that come through often do so to hilarious effect. There is also a strong undercurrent of eighties films running throughout: expect no shortage of Indiana Jones and Star Wars nods (oh, and Flash Gordon - but we’ll get to that). If you take classic Spielberg, throw in a bit of Woody Allen *, and add a substantial amount of raunchy humor, you’ll have something very close to Ted.
The plot could have been lifted from an eighties movie itself: Young John Bennett is a lonely kid, so lonely that even the bullies won’t pick on him. So one night he wishes on a shooting star that his teddy bear come to life and be his friend. His wish comes true, and the bear (named “Ted”) becomes an overnight sensation, even garnering himself an appearance on The Tonight Show. But as John gets older, so too does Ted, and the stuffed bear faces most of the challenges many celebrity children do as they age (i.e., drug-busts at the airport). Now John and Ted are both living with John’s girlfriend Lori, who’s tolerated Ted up to this point but is ready to move her relationship with John into a more serious place. Once she comes home to find Ted on the couch with a group of hookers, she gives John an ultimatum: it’s either her or Ted. Hilarity ensues…
Mark Wahlberg plays John in one of his patented lovable loser performances, and really gets a chance to flex his comedic muscles. I’ve always felt Marky-Mark should just stick to comedy, and Ted is a wonderful showcase for his abilities. Also making the movie more tolerable than it could have been is Mila Kunis as Lori - the chemistry between the two leads is extremely important to the success of a movie like this, so the fact that Kunis and Wahlberg play off each other so well helps to overshadow some of the less funny bits.
Also important is the titular character himself, and Ted is a wonder - both through MacFarlane’s voice-acting and the character animation. And yeah, it’s basically MacFarlane doing his Peter Griffin voice, but there’s enough of an inflection to differentiate the two. Ted is seamlessly interwoven into the action, including one fight sequence that rivals any of the matching animation/live-action scenes of classics like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. It’s fantastic work all-around, and succeeds in spite of the film’s constant barrage of shock-tactic humor.
And that’s really the key problem. It’s not that the jokes are too juvenile. It’s not the constant F-bombs or general toilet humor. It’s the way they are presented. Comedy comes from the unexpected. So the concept of a foul-mouthed, drug-addled teddy bear is not the worst premise for a comedic film. But the film doesn’t present anything more to the humor than what’s on the surface - there’s no room for nuance or subtlety. Nothing grows organically out of the characters or the story. The film presumes that Ted smoking weed and cursing like a sailor will be enough, but it never follows through. It’s like listening to a joke about a priest, a rabbi and a Tibetan monk walking into a bar, waiting for a punch line… And not getting one. The filmmakers' expect the concept to be funny enough.
But even the worst moments of Ted are made up for some truly virtuoso comedic scenes: the above-mentioned fight that has some very nice gags, a hilarious concert that sees Walhberg singing the theme from Octopussy horribly off-key, and a party scene that will certainly go down as one of the all-time best comedic scenes in film. The whole movie could have been crap, and it still would have been redeemed by the party that occurs around the midway point. The set-up: Ted calls John over to a party he’s having at his new apartment, but John doesn’t want to leave Lori stranded at her office party they’re both attending. Ted tells him he has to come, because Sam Jones - Flash Gordon himself - is there.
Both John and Ted grew up worshiping at the altar of Flash, so the opportunity to meet the man in person is too good for John to pass up. John gets to the party, and Ted walks him over to meet Mr. Jones himself… And then the film does it. A man turns around to meet John and Ted, and it’s Sam J. motherfuckin’ Jones, playing himself. Hair dyed blonde, parted straight down the middle - just like in Flash Gordon. It was here the film had me, hook, line and sinker; they even go so far as to have Jones don the red and black spandex and ride his astro-sled once again. The rest of the scene is pretty great in and of itself **, but having Jones actually show up (with the original Queen music!) is just icing on the cake.
There’s also a completely unnecessary subplot involving Giovanni Ribisi wanting to kidnap Ted for his son, that leads into an even more unnecessary chase scene where John and Lori try to get Ted back. I don’t know what it is about third acts these days, but most mainstream movies just can’t their acts together for a satisfying finish. Newsflash, Hollywood: not every film needs to end with a car chase. Especially one about a talking teddy bear.
Still, despite its glaring flaws, it’s awfully hard not to have a good time with Ted.
* If I were being extremely generous, I’d say that MacFarlane almost does here for Boston what Woody Allen did for New York in his films, but that’s far more generous than I’m willing to be: the similarities with Allen lie mainly in the musical cues MacFarlane uses.
** Except for the Asian neighbor, which is not only horribly racist, but really dated. Honestly, the bit would have been a lot funnier had the neighbor just been a regular Asian dude, instead of a caricature.
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