Family Guy, and by extension its creator Seth MacFarlane, is something of a controversial subject. It’s kind of a love it or hate it show; which is understandable, because it has a very rigidly defined formula in how it builds its jokes. Some people get turned off by its two or three go-to tricks, and some people love what it does and can’t get enough. Even big fans of the show can probably agree that the later episodes are fairly lame compared to the original run of the series that came pre-cancellation though. Popular opinion is that Family Guy hasn’t been good for awhile, and in extending himself with American Dad and the spinoff The Cleveland Show, MacFarlane has left himself burnt out and out of material. Consequently, it’s with a bit of trepidation that I approached the man’s first foray into directing feature films, Ted. And it’s with great pleasure that I report those fears were unfounded. Ted sees a Seth MacFarlane who appears to be focused, rejuvenated, and full of funny gags.
If you’ve somehow avoided the ubiquitous marketing campaign, Ted is the story of a dorky little boy (eventually Mark Wahlberg) who makes a wish that his fuzzy Teddy Bear would come to life and be his friend so that he doesn’t have to go through life alone. Well, he does, and at first everything works out great. The boy finally has a friend, and the bear, being magical, even becomes something of a celebrity. As the little boy ages things become a little awkward, however. He’s now a grown man with a foxy and successful fiancé (Mila Kunis) who he should probably be proposing to sometime soon. Problem is, the man-boy works a dead end job and still spends all his time hanging out with his now crass and pot smoking best friend (the bear, voiced by MacFarlane), so he’s having some trouble becoming the man that the love of his life needs him to be.
I know what you’re thinking, “A cute Teddy Bear that acts unexpectedly inappropriately, what an impossibly original concept.” And yes, conceptually the film does feel pretty par for course as far as MacFarlane’s humor is concerned. But the good news is that it fills itself with enough non-bear related humor and characters who you generally like that it never wears out its welcome. In many other hands Ted would have probably been a cheap gimmick movie that got old somewhere around the point where a 22 minute TV show usually ends, but due to strong screenwriting by MacFarlane as his collaborators (Alec Sulkin & Wellesley Wild) it becomes a concept that’s actually able to sustain a feature film.
A lot of that has to do with how great Wahlberg and Kunis are interacting with a computer generated bear. They’re so natural and committed in everything they do that the integration of the bear into the real world is seamless. I’m sure having the voice of the bear right there on set to read with them was a help in that regard, but still, the wooden delivery of actors interacting with cartoon creatures that happens in George Lucas movies is nowhere to be found here. They’re both really funny as well. Wahlberg is always most tolerable when he’s playing the lovable goof, and in that regard this is the best role he’s ever had (as long as you don’t count Boogie Nights). In a movie with a stuffed bear Wahlberg somehow manages to be the huggable one, and the way he makes you stay with his character even through ridiculous shenanigans was an essential element of Ted’s success. Kunis, comparatively, is just here to be a pretty face. She’s stuck in the generic girlfriend role, but rather than just being a nag she’s at least given a few chances to mess around with the boys; and she’s able to get some legitimate laughs in the process. Yeah, she’s playing the generic girlfriend, but this is the best generic girlfriend I remember anyone getting to play in a while. And heck, as far as performances are concerned, this movie even finds the perfect role to utilize Giovanni Ribisi’s unique talents. Finally. Somebody had to figure that one out eventually.
The actors are so good that even the dramatic elements that creep into the film do their job. There’s stuff in here about learning to grow up and become a man. There’s stuff about the difficulty in keeping friendships healthy once you reach the age where romantic relationships start becoming permanent. And there’s even something of an action element that creeps in late. It all works well enough, and that’s largely because MacFarlane never tries too hard with any of it. The dramatic moments show up just enough to tell a real story and make you feel like you’ve watched a complete film rather than just a series of riffs. They’re never begging you to have a real, emotional response like the desperate third acts of Adam Sandler movies. And, for that, MacFarlane needs to be thanked.
Being a strict comedy though, Ted lives and dies by its jokes. So how are they? If you’ve seen Family Guy, you know the deal. There are lots of cutaways to fantasy sequences, lots of shocking and politically incorrect comments, and lots of references to weird pop culture things from the 80s. The good news is, the jokes hit with far more frequency here than they do in the typical episode of Family Guy, and it really feels like MacFarlane put in a lot of effort into getting everything just right. Most notably, this movie has just the right amount of racism. There’s not so much that it feels like cheating, and it’s always got a clever enough spin on it that it doesn’t feel hateful. In comedy, a little bit of racism goes a long way. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the fart jokes. The fart jokes were fart jokes. I’m still waiting for a fart joke so well crafted that it’s legitimately funny (important note: this doesn’t count shit jokes, which are a different form of humor entirely). One thing that might turn some audiences off is the obscurity of all the 80s references. There are a lot of jokes that only work if you have an encyclopedic knowledge of 80s pop culture. Like, a lot of them. I saw this with a crowd that was almost exclusively 19-years-old, and there were some long stretches of silence as the jokes sailed completely over their heads. I think the bear saying raunchy stuff tickled everyone enough that they walked out of the movie liking it though, so no harm no foul.
The biggest question I had when walking out of Ted is what MacFarlane’s future as a director of feature films is going to look like. At the very least he proved with Ted that he has the chops to make a nice looking and well put together film. He clearly has a love for classic Hollywood moviemaking. The crane, helicopter, and dolly shots on display here prove that alone—not to mention the score that sounds like it would be at home in a film from the 40s. Ted is actually shot really well, so much so that it felt like a breath of fresh air next to the MTV filmmaking of the last couple decades. Could McFarlane succeed making something like The Artist, a throwback to the glory years of Hollywood that isn’t a filthy comedy?
Okay, probably nobody wants to see him go that far, but it does seem like he’s going to have to move away from his usual bag of tricks if he’s going to transition from the small screen to the big in a real and lasting way. Ted was funny enough to be a success, but all of the raunchy gags and pop culture references are going to have diminishing returns eventually. Don’t believe me? Just look at every director who became famous from doing raunch and pop culture laden stuff in the 90s and see how good the stuff they’re putting out is now. Yeah, it’s a scary reality.
