Review: "Ted" series tries too hard for funny but just shocks

"Ted" 2012, R
Seth MacFarlane clearly intended to make a Teddy Ruxpin movie and couldn't get the rights. A lot of 80s generation kids, including myself, imagined the talking bear as a foul mouthed jerk as a joke, and what it would do to children if it talked like that.

The premise literally is Ted can cuss. Great. Not only that, Ted can smoke pot and work as a clerk at a store, and also be a ladies man, and alongside Mar Walhberg can appear to be his alter ego. It's Burns and Allen with cussing and with a bear.

Oh and Ted sounds like Perter from Family Guy. That's the joke. The rerst of the movie is an excuse for jokes like that show, and about being obnoxious.

"Ted 2" 2015, R
Seth returns for the sequel and brushes off any charm from the last movie, referencing a live action show tunes Oscar gag from the Ted at the Oscars bit, and a wedding, and the bear and the girl wanting a baby. Yep, they want to completely stop the franchise by having a baby. Suddenly it's about family values.

The twists and turns that lead Whalberg and Ted to a sperm bank and then to a lawyer to see if they can grant Ted person hood sometimes have funny scenes. Mostly though they're gross out jokes. In one scene a large rack of sperm samples falls on a guy. In another, the old gag about the penis bong appears, and is used to comic redundancy.

One of the truly surreal bits is a crazy Hasbro exec dealing with an evil janitor who liked urinal cakes as his code word, which is bizarre, and another is an improv joke where they attend a comedy night and shout out inappropriate comedy suggestions.

The trouble with Ted 2 is meanly in the delivery. The pot jokes are funny mostly. They have a Jurassic Park moment even, although oversold, as usual.

The internet porn and google search jokes are funny.

It's worth a rental but they miss the obvious, never ever include a baby, and the obvious joke, why wasn't the villain Teddy Ruxpin?

Also why did they not have a Boston Legal joke in there, as they're in Boston and it was one of the most celebrated law comedies of modern times? It would have been hilarious if they got Shatner instead of Morgan Freeman.

Review by Adam Browne