Ted (2012) - MacFarlane's crass comedy is a winner

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One of the bright, culturally connecting posters for Seth MacFarlane's Ted

 

Ted is a living, breathing teddy-bear, who still lives with his best friend, who has now turned 35, and whose girlfriend is getting tired of his vulgar, transgressive best friend.

 

Ted is the feature debut for co-writer/co-producer/director/voice actor Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy (1999-16), creator), written with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild (A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), both). It is a package of immature, mean-spirited fun; its success with each single audience member depends on his or her relationship with the type of humor that has become MacFarlane's brand, a type that is at the expense of many different groups of people as well as individual celebrities.

The effects-wise complicated task of a major character who is a (seemingly) real, live teddy-bear, (voiced by MacFarlane), functions really well. Mark Wahlberg (Lone Survivor (2013)) and Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)) are perfectly cast, and Giovanni Ribisi (The Gift (2000)) is funny as the heavy. Ted and Wahlberg share what may be the year's best fight scene in the film.

To extend the premise into a feature-length film, an uninspired car chase gets stuffed into Ted as well as some obscure humor; SPOILER first and foremost the many Flash Gordon (1980) references, - including the involvement of Sam J. Jones (Flash Gordon himself from the film), who plays himself, - which, on the other hand, is quite funny.

Ted is crude, arguably in poor taste, - but a funny comedy nonetheless.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 51 mil. $

Box office: 549.3 mil. $

= Huge hit

[Ted was released June 29 and runs 106 minutes. MacFarlane originally envisioned Ted as another animated TV-series. Filming took place entirely on location in Massachusetts from April - July 2011. The film opened #1 to a 54.4 mil. $ opening weekend, spending a total of 5 weeks in the top 5, (slipping one seat every week), in North America, where it grossed 218.8 mil. $ (39.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 48.8 mil. $ (8.9 %) and Japan with 43.9 mil. $ (8 %). The film was Universal's highest-grossing film of 2012 and the 12th highest-grossing of the year overall. Ted was nominated for one Oscar; for Best Song (Everybody Needs a Best Friend), which it lost to Skyfall. Ted 2 was released in 2015, which was still successful, but much less so. Ted is fresh at 67 % with a 6.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ted?