The story of a magical Teddy bear coming to life would've been a runaway hit in the eighties like ET, but more of a Robot Chicken parody. The fact that a movie like Ted exists is pretty awesome in general. It in all it's cheesy eighties references and unabashed nerdy glory could only be conceived by the Geek mind of Seth McFarlane. This praise is coming from a guy who hates Family Guy. Ted is the best humor of Family Guy with actual narrative and characters we can care about. If Ted and Wahlberg weren't as loveable as they are then Ted would not work on as many levels as it does. True friendship blossoms and we watch them grow into a good family with Flash Gordon himself happily ever after!

ted-mila-kunisTed 2 goes full throttle with super-long jokes that make a narrative on what it is to be human, but at no point does it become uninteresting. Ted is back married to Tammy-Lynn and poor John has lost Lori. This was a little weird since she played a big part in the original flick since if not for her wish, Ted would be dead. For whatever reason, Mila Kunis is out and the story continues. Ted and Tammy-Lynn want to have a kid and go through a myriad of jokes to get one until they finally decide to adopt. This is where Ted finds out that the world doesn't consider him a person as there is no real record of him in society as a citizen. This news spirals his life out of control as everything he has worked for is taken from him. With the help of Johnny and his pot smoking lawyer Sam (Amanda Seyfried) they go on a journey to make the world see him as a person and not property.

McFarlane definitely pushes the envelope for bad taste humor covered with each moment of drama. It's nice in that you have to realize life happens and sometimes the most dramatic problems you have you must face with a dick joke in order to cope. The human vs. property narrative you really don't see playing out in this day and age without Ted's ridiculous existence. Match the ridiculous with the ludicrous. The story itself would have been a really simple one on it's own, but you are bombarded with thirty jokes between each plot point and every tenth joke can be considered an eighties montage complete with copy written music from each gargantuan blockbuster film bring referenced.

It all culminates into a huge battle at comic con, which is really random. It sets up a secondary antagonist that appeared in the first film, but is now equipped with an evil toy company that now makes terrible Marvel Legends toys. Can you guess who it is boys and girls? However if you are a nerd, you are so overjoyed at every wonderful detail and reference out of the comic con sequence you, don't care at all that there was no plausibility of the situation.

ted-amanda-seyfriedThe new introduction of Seyfried is very different from her usual roles. She plays very chill lawyer who can reference everything you would learn at Harvard and recite dead poets and historical dates like a boss, but still has time to rip off some bong hits. She rolls with the movie far better than I expected as John's love interest and we are given a very good reason why he and Lori didn't work out that didn't really feel like a cop out. She carries herself in the movie very well, but it still felt a little strange that she would fall for John as he is a pop culture junkie and she's pretty oblivious to his references. The power of the bong does invite strong love though!

In the end this is more Ted's movie than the previous one. Everybody plays support to our foul-mouthed bear as we watch him struggle to become a person. We share his victories and shoot a middle finger with him at his defeats. It is said that with sequels they tend to turn tropes and scenes from it's originator on their heads. Ted 2 has a very dramatic end sequence reminiscent if the first, but throws you a 360 and spits an Oscar-worthy performance in your face even referencing the original flick, which was pretty awesome.

ted2toastThis is the average schmo's movie with a lot of geekdom strung throughout. If you're looking for anything more than that out of McFarlane, you're in the wrong place thunder buddy. It's not the greatest film of the year, but it is very fun. It's the kind if movie you and your friends go to, pop open a brew and watch expecting a lot of porn jokes. For the sake of life and crude attitude, I give it 3 of Marky Mark's little soldiers out of five