The bear minimum
Ted 2 not as strong as the original, but still has some good gags
Surprise is a hard thing to lose in comedy. Three years ago, the Seth MacFarlane comedy Ted blindsided audiences as a foul-mouthed fairytale about a man-child (Mark Wahlberg) and his talking teddy bear.
Beneath the barrage of trademark MacFarlane scattershot gags, gross-outs and cheap, throwaway pop culture references, there was a charming metaphor (which you could ignore at will) about men who refuse to grow up.
Indeed, MacFarlane’s one-off stint as host of the Oscars could probably be traced to Ted’s good karma.
Flash forward. Since we already know the premise of Ted 2 (John and Ted are still together smoking pot and making up stoned lyrics to the Law & Order theme), the only real surprise is that this movie ended up being almost two hours long.
How did that happen? Well, they replaced the man-child metaphor with one about, um, slavery. And they tacked on a lengthy sub plot about Ted the teddy bear (MacFarlane) and his gum-cracking girlfriend Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) trying to have a baby (which at one point involves trying to coax the sperm out of a sleeping Tom Brady — seriously).
And, of course, with no Mila Kunis, they had to drum up a new love interest for John.
Enter Amanda Seyfried as a pro bono lawyer who has to defend Ted’s “personhood ”in court while suffering numerous jokes about how her saucer eyes make her look like Gollum.
And there’s some stuff about an evil Hasbro executive (John Carroll Lynch) seeking — with the help of the deranged Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) — to make a billion dollars off what makes Ted tick.
The movie’s heart isn’t in its story the way it was in the first. Which means Ted 2 is mainly an exhaustive (and at times exhausted) extended MacFarlane riff.
Let him throw celebrity-filled gags at you for two hours, and some of them will be pretty clever (my fave: a set piece at a supermarket where Liam Neeson asks intense and intimidating questions about the suitability for adults of Trix cereal).
At others, the jokes descend into lazy gratuitousness straight out of a lesser Family Guy episode (an out-of-work Ted tells his lawyer “I’ve had to do things I’m not proud of” to make ends meet — followed by an unfunny Ted-as-male-prostitute flashback).
And then there’s humour that falls into the category of I-can’t-believe-they-did-that, epitomized by a mishap in a sperm lab, capped by the most unprintable Kim Kardashian joke I’ve ever heard.
Still, like baseball, the hit-to-miss gag ratio doesn’t have to be all that high for Ted 2 to be entertaining enough. It gave me at least eight good laughs — mostly from set pieces that had nothing to do with the story. Your mileage may vary. (Side note to practitioners of improv comedy: There’s a segment at a comedy club that is almost a tutorial on tragic audience suggestions that will completely mess you up. You’ll be hearing them soon).