bennyhagen Review of Ted

Ted (2012)

Okay, but slim

[10 December 2012]

Ted is an okay movie. Some of the jokes are really hilarious and in a peculiarly intelligent manner. Seth McFarlane's humor is really one of a kind and his easy approach towards movie-making is something that is worth appreciating. He's just consequently himself without all the BS and that's very refreshing. Ted has a few downsides though. Some of it only got clear to me a few hours after seeing the movie and realizing how kind of forgettable the whole thing is. This might be due to the fact that the script is not particularly rich in content. Compressing character development into feature film length might be unfamiliar territory for McFarlane and most of the characters are pretty slim, with the female lead appearing particularly one dimensional. Joel McHale's character and the promising antagonists of the movie fall unfairly short too and the movie really could have used a lot more work on them. This is especially frustrating seeing so much empty space throughout the movie just screaming for ideas to be inserted and one gets the feeling that McFarlane just didn't really try too hard all together, kind of disrespecting his devoted fanbase. Also, the moral standpoint of the movie was a bit unclear to me and could have been worked out more. I'm not saying that it couldn't have done without one, but if you do have a position and you center a whole plot around it, please make it at least a clear one. Also McFarlane is not a professional director. Considering that, he does an OK job, but it's really not Spielberg.

All together, Ted is not a bad movie by any means and it's kind of lovely, with a lot of good jokes. It's just a bit slim, especially for it's premise.

For the same concept Simon Pegg/Nick Frost vehicle Paul comes to mind as a much more profound movie.

5/10