"Ted 2" Film Review

"Ted 2" Film Review

Rating: 4/5

By: Nathaniel Simpson

    With the first "Ted" movie, Seth MacFarlane is tasked with breaking into the world of cinema after creating two massive television successes known as "Family Guy" and "American Dad". Well, not shocking to anybody, his movie received both critical and financial success, with viewers praising the film for being so funny and vulgar at the same time. When MacFarlane and the cast came back for the second film, it was pretty much the icing on the cake. This movie is easily just a representation of MacFarlane having the best time ever with his material, presenting a wildly fun movie that is easily as enjoyable as the first, if not more. 

    Ted (MacFarlane) is now married to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth), his white-trash girlfriend from the first film. However, now that time has passed, they find themselves arguing and getting into full-blown abusive fights almost every night. So, Ted has the bright idea to become a father, hoping the baby will bring peace between him and Tami-Lynn. However, when he tries to both adopt and have Tami-Lynn artificially inseminated, they discover that Ted is not a person, making him property to his long-time friend, John (Mark Wahlberg).

    Now wanting to fight for his rights as a United States Citizen, they hire new lawyer Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) to help them fight the odd law in place. What they get themselves into are crazy hijinks that force them to discover different things about themselves. What they don't expect, though, is for Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) to come back with a vengeance, wanting to ruin Ted and John for good. 

    If I had the choice between the two films in this duology to rewatch, most of the time I would go for this installment. I truly think this is the funniest one out of the two, and is incredibly quotable and hilarious. Many scenes easily make me laugh out loud, no matter how many times I have seen those scenes, either in the movie or on social media. From the talk about what the F means in F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ted having to pick his human name (which he lands on Clubber Lang), the entire film is so funny that it could easily make you fall over in stitches. 

    What I really enjoy here is MacFarlane takes a lot of influences from "Family Guy" in terms of cutaway gags and off-topic jokes. Consider the scenes where Ted and John try to confront the latter's porn addiction or when they try to collect semen from football star Tom Brady, they are so random and off-the-wall crazy that they simply work in the context of the movie. However, because of this, the story sort of seems all over the place at times. The first thirty minutes or so of this movie are everywhere, and don't really have any sort of guide or purpose to being there. Funny, sure. But it seems incredibly lost in the first part of this movie. 

    Ted and John are probably the best here, delivering great comedic lines one after another. I do really like the exclusion of Mila Kunis' Lori here, as I feel like her character came between some great comedic moments between John and Ted. Here, MacFarlane really lets them shine, and they have wonderful chemistry together. At the same time, Seyfried is a great addition to form this trio, and I just simply like her character more than Lori from the first one. 

    What's interesting about this movie is they add in so many different celebrity cameos. Consider the scene with Liam Neeson buying the Trix cereal, wondering if it's just for kids or not. It's so odd and bizarre that it doesn't make sense in the context of the film, but it is absolutely hilarious if you understand what it is referencing. There are a few cameos that are like that; while I do enjoy them, they are very unnecessary and just seems like MacFarlane is flexing his star power and how he can get anyone he wants in his projects. 

    I simply just had such a fun time with this movie. MacFarlane comes back to craft another wacky adventure to send his teddy bear character on, and I just loved it from beginning to end. Sure, it suffers from a couple of problems, but at the end of the day, it is just a hilarious movie that doesn't want to, nor does it need to, take itself that seriously. In my opinion, that's what the audience needs to do as well.