Ted (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

I've struggled to finish reviews of any comedy films this year, so after seeing Ted I promised myself I would complete one for once. As a formerly huge fan of Family Guy this was a film I was both intrigued and apprehensive about - I wasn't totally sure what to expect from it but had a fair idea of what the humour would be like. I'd also not read a single review of it beforehand - not something I actively avoided so it seems a little weird that there has been relatively little coverage. I certainly enjoyed most of it at the time but some issues sprang to mind as I started to write about it.

Perhaps the best way to describe it as a whole is overindulgent. Despite a strong opening I really felt that it dragged for a while after that, spending too much time on the in depth situation of each character. Sadly I don't remember it being particularly funny either. It didn't really pick up for me until you see Ted in a suit, off to try and get his first job. There was also a section later on that seemed to exist purely to get a celebrity cameo in, which was neither funny to me or moving the plot forward in any meaningful way.

I find it funny that I can pick out large areas to cut when the film itself is just a shade longer than Brave, which felt like a very short, concise film to me. I personally wonder whether Seth MacFarlane had enough experience in telling a story of this length when most of his cartoons are self contained 30 minute episodes. While there have been a few Family Guy stories that span multiple episodes, Ted ends up feeling like everything and the kitchen sink was thrown at it to pad it out. But then that overindulgence has always been a hallmark of his cartoons too. I couldn't help but think back to Family Guy's ridiculously long chicken fight in one particular scene, which managed to go through the feeling that it was much longer than it probably should have been and still come out the other side being funny.

Like Family Guy I also felt that it had an over reliance on pop culture that was very specific to the US and didn't immediately amuse me if I didn't get the reference. Probably my main reason for moving away from watching Family Guy was the realisation that it was starting to rely too heavily on the 'random' cutaway gags and that these generally only made me laugh once out of surprise and didn't really work if you watched them again. You could say Ted took this even further with a random flashback among the character establishing sequences that I didn't find funny in the slightest.

And it makes me feel so old but I also feel like the overuse of the F-word in this was hardly ever funny. Restricted by what you could get away with on a TV network, Family Guy was always pushing against boundaries to see what they could get away with and even the occasional bleeped swear could seem shocking and humorous at the same time. Here it got old fast and I don't think it was just me, I can't recall hearing a single chuckle at an F-word just dropped into conversation but there was plenty of laughter in its more inventive parts. Perhaps I wasn't really there with the target audience since it had been out a while when I got to see it but to me the overuse definitely wore down the impact it could have had if it was used a little more sparingly.

I do feel like there's a good movie in there somewhere and I liked how it approached the idea that Ted could eventually become normal and forgotten about. But there were parts that seemed to hinder the story unfolding as if it was realistic by going so over the top and assuming that everyone is in on the joke. It all adds up to a mixed bag that leaves you feeling a bit unsatisfied. Perhaps I've often struggled to finish comedy reviews as I may have laughed along at the time but not really felt like the film went anywhere or had much to say. Here you question what had really changed about the characters situations by the end of the film but it's played as a happy ending, all problems solved, which just didn't convince me.

People will always say that humour is subjective but I think it can also seem temporary. Like Family Guys one off random gags with a short shelf life, you also had the problem here of seeing a lot of those in trailers. It can be difficult to remember specific funny parts later and even then if I was to try to list or explain jokes it would only lead to them not sounding funny at all. So while I can almost certainly recommend this to people who won't be offended by its humour, I would have just liked it to be a more focussed and consistent film on the whole.