The Cocky Critic..... Flicks Now On / ted (M18)

In 1985, on the south of Boston, there lived a boy, so unpopular with the neighbourhood children that even the Jewish kid, who suffered the wrath of others, shunned him as well. That made young John Bennett (Bretton Manley) friendless so it wasn’t very long after he receives a large teddy bear for Christmas that he wishes Ted, as he fondly named him, would just spring to life and be his friend. Against all logic, it happened anyway, first to the horror of John’s parents before Ted’s limelight in national media which dubbed him a Christmas miracle.

Eventually, all living beings grow and so does Ted, albeit just personality-wise, and his friendship with John stays strong as the latter (Mark Walberg) reached his 30s. An addition to their intimate circle is Lori (Mila Kunis), John’s faithful but otherwise longsuffering girlfriend.

ted is Seth MacFarlane’s (the creator of Family Guy) directorial debut with an odd-ball twist within a bromance-themed comedy. In the place of the conventional human buddy is the cotton-stuffed fuzziness of an aged teddy bear (voiced and motioned captured by Seth Macfarlane) who’s capable of every decadent deeds his homo sapient pals will get themselves into, if only cruder. He swears, smokes weed, parties, flirts, and occasionally indulges in sex. 

Ted’s enduring bond with John, however, seem to carry a detrimental effect on John’s personal development and strains his relationship with Lori. Making matters worse, John’s feeble capacity for responsibility irks his boss (Matt Walsh), who attempts to motivate him by bragging about his photo shot with the actor, Tom Skerritt. As John tries to rein his adulthood toward maturity, Ted steers him from one needless distraction to another, threatening the delicate state of John’s love life.

Bearsome: John Bennett's (Mark Walberg, left) girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis, right) has to cope with her partner's unusual relationship with Ted (middle, voiced by Seth MacFarlane). 

Delivering a unique perspective towards the bromance sub-genre, ted’s intriguing catch with a living, foul-mouthed teddy bear plays it well in rendering the fine chemistry of nostalgia and friendship hindering its protagonist from growing up. 

In John Bennett, Mark Walberg portrays to his strength, a man, still gripped by frat-boy innocence and a geek love for Flash Gordon, stuck in the transitional passage of two life phases. Not that Ted gives a damn, so long there are more hedonistic pleasures to deal with. Spewing off lines laced by pop culture references and McFarlane’s edgy humour, Ted’s sardonic nature is easily forgiven by the fact that he is just a cute plush toy. That is if one could look past his promiscuity with women and a previous, love affair with a well-known Grammy Award winner.

The film also has its villains: Lori’s elitist superior, Rex (Joel McHale), who pursues her with a wolf-lust eagerness; and Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) , a severely disturbed stalker with almost paedophiliac inclinations towards Ted and wants him for his son (Aedine Mincks). Both of these contribute to the supporting cast of other quirky characters, supplementing a good amount of side-track humour, which probably matters more than plot development.

Bear with it: Ted the teddy bear smokes weed and indulges in sex..... absurdity you won't expect from a plush toy. 

ted’s script also deploys some semblance of McFarlanish humour, prevalent in the director’s animated masterpiece, Family Guy, which is both a good and bad thing since what works in animation doesn’t always apply to a live action movie. Still, it carries the film through a smooth but fairly conventional story path, with enough gags to get the tickles about. While Ted is indeed the star of the show, some scenes are already funny in their own rights, with instances, such as. a chance meeting with Sam Jones (aka Mr Flash Gordon himself) memorable for a level of absurdity even non-fan-boys can appreciate.

In retrospection, arguments may well be made about the traditional mold ted has taken on if the notion of an uncouth teddy bear is to be excluded. However, this is the kind of movie requiring the brain behind one of America’s most politically incorrect sitcom. ted is McFarlane’s love child and by suckling from his relevant background and outrageous creativity, it has popped into the form of impish exuberance that gets sharp with its joke and concept.