‘Ted’ keeps the laughs coming

“Ted” is a raunchy, clever adult com­edy that begins with a young, John Ben­nett (Wahlberg) who is an only child that lacks friends. His par­ents give him a teddy bear that imme­di­ately becomes his best friend. John makes a spe­cial wish for, Ted (Mac­Far­lane) to be alive so he can be together for­ever. John’s wish comes true and, Ted springs to life as his per­fect toy and com­pan­ion. He and John grow up together, do drugs together, curse together and even­tu­ally need to go their sep­a­rate ways in order for John to become the respon­si­ble adult that his girl­friend Lori (Kunis) knows he can be.

The first thing you notice is how life­like Ted actu­ally seems. There is a mon­tage in the film that spans most of the youth of Ted and John. Once we arrive at the present day, you notice that Ted’s voice has got­ten deeper over the years. Next you see that his fur is slightly dingy and mat­ted as you would expect of a stuffed ani­mal of his age. Finally, his intel­lect is that of a well-versed col­lege dropout. Ted pays for female com­pan­ion­ship and has no respect for John or Lori as he free­loads at their Boston apart­ment. He reminds me of those friends that were so much fun to hang around with in high school, but refused to face real­ity and learn respon­si­bil­ity. The kind of guy that you have so many great sto­ries and mem­o­ries with, but at the same time you wouldn’t invite him to your daughter’s sixth birth­day party at the YMCA for fear of what the other par­ents would think of you afterwards.

Mark Wahlberg has come a long way since he left “The Funky Bunch” for a career in film. He has such a habit­ual facial expres­sion that he is believ­able in the “bad boy” and “tough guy” roles. Wahlberg’s char­ac­ter por­tray­als have pre­dom­i­nantly been action leads with only a few that broke this mold. Who knew he had a sense of humor? I think that Seth Mac­Far­lane took a risk with cast­ing him as John and it paid off. Mark Wahlberg’s act­ing and deliv­ery got an easy half-dozen belly laughs out of me dur­ing the course of the movie. His emo­tions and facial expres­sions were so believ­able that I missed punch­lines sev­eral times because I was still reel­ing from the pre­vi­ous joke or sight gag. My only hope is that he pur­sues this and accepts more parts as a comedic per­former in the future. Sev­eral actors have tried to break out of their type­cast shells and felt the back­lash for it. I strongly believe that we will be see­ing yet another side of Marky Mark from now on.

Like it or not, Seth Mac­Far­lane is one of the great­est con­trib­u­tors to mod­ern enter­tain­ment. He is known as the cre­ator, writer and 90 per­cent of the voices for many hit tele­vi­sion shows from “Fam­ily Guy” to “Amer­i­can Dad.” He is edgy, top­i­cal and pushes the bound­aries of the view­ers every bit as much as he does the cen­sors. Seth also has a strong back­ground in song­writ­ing and is a con­nois­seur of Broad­way musi­cals. He worked as an ani­ma­tor for Hanna-Barbera, Car­toon Net­work, Fox and even Dis­ney. “Ted” is his first feature-length film and by the reac­tions of the screen­ing audi­ence at the pre­mier, this is a much-welcomed next step in his amaz­ing career. There was not one instance that I felt the movie could use a lit­tle some­thing else. There were no moments when I thought that Ted was a com­puter gen­er­ated image and not really alive. Most of all, there was not a minute that went by where I felt bored or even had a chance to get a refill on my pop. My atten­tion was on the screen from start to fin­ish. And every time that I thought to myself, “It would be so funny if they made Ted (blank)” it would hap­pen. If the future holds any­thing that is even half as funny as “Ted,” I will be there on open­ing night.

Are you look­ing for a very adult-oriented night out? Do you feel the occa­sional need to see amaz­ingly chore­o­graphed fight scenes involv­ing stuffed ani­mals and action stars? Did your spouse make you go see “Rock of Ages” last week and now it’s your turn to pick the movie? Well then you owe it to your­self to go see “Ted.” This is a comedic mas­ter­piece in every aspect of the word. Every few years a movie comes out that is so orig­i­nal and funny that it becomes a sta­ple in your DVD col­lec­tion. I know this is a bold state­ment, but “Ted” might get bumped in front of my copy of “Super Troopers.”

Posted by Scott Hall on Jun 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.