Low expectations make Ted 2 a good time
This stupidly ignorant movie made me laugh very hard.
Ted 2 features an extended opening credit scene of the deceptively cute teddy bear leading a choreographed ensemble dance number that would have made Jack Cole proud. Honestly, if the whole film was made up of 20 of these, on loop, I would have been content.
Obviously this is not what happens. Instead, Mark Walhberg and Seth MacFarlane deliver the potty-mouthed bromance they promised. In the sequel, Ted, a stuffed animal that came to life and subsequently fell into a spiral of drug-ladened fame and burnout, finds himself in a pickle because he’s not seen as a “person’’ in the eyes of the law. He is instead seen as “property,’’ and unlike many others who have been unjustly classified as “property’’ in times before, Ted benefits from the entitled luxury of lawyering up and decides to rage against the machine.
A subplot involves Ted’s everyman best friend, John Bennett (played by 44-year-old human grownup Mark Walhberg), who spends most of the movie agonizing how he can get back in the game following his abrupt divorce from his ex-wife, who was always trying to change him. This is less interesting, but both characters’ dilemmas bring us to Amanda Seyfried as Samantha Jackson, a bong-ripping lawyer on her first case who has a thirst for justice, equal rights, and John Bennett. Wink.
Criticshave not been kind to Ted 2. Which is to say, theyhatedit. And I can see why. Ted 2 finds its sweet spot in rude, raucous humor by using a vague, grand sweeping statement on civil rights injustice as an excuse for blindingly ignorant, racist, sexist jokes that are largely written to oblige an audience of straight, white males. Outside the movie’s target demographic? Prepare to find yourself offended.
And while I don’t want to do a disservice to a movie that I thought was for the most part entertaining, I watched a lot of Ted 2 through the cracks between my fingers covering my eyes. Every reoccurring jab at black men’s penises made my stomach drop, as did MacFarlane’s strategic camera angles that continuously spread Ted’s wife, Tammi-Lynn’s (Jessica Barth) voluptuous assets over half of the screen. But I laughed very hard when Ted and Bennett make the manic decision to break into Tom Brady’s mansion in hopes of stealing his sperm.
A colleague recently said one of the genius things about Ted was that you could catch any 15 minutes, find it funny, and move on without having to see the full film. The same could be said about Ted 2. But the sum is not greater than its parts. What the film makes up in broadly appealing dirty humor, it loses when Ted claims to identify with Kunta Kinte or when Ferguson, Missouri is shouted out for a prompt at an improv comedy night.
Going to see Ted 2 and trying to take its civil rights undertone seriously is like watching Legally Blonde and expecting to leave with a better understanding of sexism in academia. It’s not just Ted 2’s inherent stupidity that saves it from becoming a complete disjointed mess, it’s MacFarlane’s (correct) assumption that inherent stupidity is what American audiences want that will make it a box office success.
Mark Wahlberg movies, ranked from worst to best
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