Movie Review: TED (2012) Starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis

People have been telling me for weeks now that I need to watch and review Ted as it’s one of the funniest movies they have ever seen. My brother and brother-in-law were almost telling me the script line for line when we were doing a house move (not mine, and no, that’s not what I do for a living, you have to help out family right?) last weekend. Also I have seen a lot of comments on Facebook with various friends of mine stating that Ted is the funniest movie they have ever seen. Critics have bigged it up whilst others have panned it. I posted the trailer some time ago now and wasn’t that interested due to the Seth MacFarlane factor. Now, please join me for what will be a very short (no pun intended Ted) write up on this absolute pile of shite.

Starring: Seth MacFarlane (Voice), Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Giovanni Ribisi and Bill Smitrovich

The Plot

John Bennett (Wahlberg) is a lonely kid growing up in the 80’s with no friends, at Christmas he makes a wish on a falling star that his teddy bear named Teddy would come to life. Hey presto, wouldn’t you believe it? The next morning he wakes up and the two begin a beautiful friendship before scaring the crap out of John’s parents. Jump forward fifteen years or so and Teddy is now named Ted, a washed out celebrity phenomenon bear who loves nothing better than sitting getting stoned at 9am with his best friend John, not only does he like drugs he also partakes in copious amounts of alcohol consumption, loose women and pretty much anything else you can think of that’s bad for your health.

The Verdict

Mark Wahlberg is a pretty easy going guy, and I’d say that’s a pretty good job for this movie, Ted really does just go to show that Wahlberg clearly does not need the money anymore, and maybe he just likes to indulge in his crazy side every now and again. Whalberg is a great actor in my opinion, more the kick ass type I’ll admit but personally I really enjoy the movies he does like that, most recent of which would be Contraband. Quite why he offers to star in trash like this is beyond me if I’m honest.

Maybe it’s just age, I don’t know, now I’m in my 30’s I just found this comedy totally ridiculous. I’ve no doubt teenagers or people in their early twenties (my brother) will think that this trash is utterly hilarious, a bear who swears a lot, takes drugs and makes very derogatory sexual remarks towards women, there is no real story here not least that you can’t see coming anyway. John’s girlfriend wants Ted rid off and then ultimately wants him back in their lives, I know it’s not real but come on give me a break. Who would you rather have in your bed? A foul mouthed bear who is scared of thunder or Mila Kunis? It’s a difficult decision but I know which one I’d be choosing, and it ain’t the bear.

Quite often with movies these days they say if you have seen the trailer then you have seen the movie, and they are right. Most of the time these days most of the movies best bits are in the trailer, whilst the remaing almost two hours has very little to offer the audience. I can report that unsurprisingly Ted is one of those movies, drunken sexual jokes can only go so far and all you need to do is check out the Ted Red Band trailer and you will see every joke that this bear has to offer. I will admit that during my first viewing of the trailer I laughed, even though I don’t like Seth MacFarlane. Second time I saw the trailer I still laughed, however on this occasion I simply sat and watched, bored with the comedy on offer in need of much more intelligent laughs.

Would I watch it again?

Really?? No

 

This Week In Cinema's.... Mark Wahlberg and his Foul Mouthed Teddy Bear TED

We seem to have hit that point in the summer where for a couple of week's the studio's decide not to release to much, don't worry though they'll be back on their A-Game soon with the release of The Bourne Legacy and The Expendables 2. I suppose they need to give the hype of The Dark Knight Rises a couple of weeks to weaken off before they go all out again. Anyway, that's not to say that there is nothing being released this week. TED comes out today, that's the biggest of the bunch, but there's also a new thriller movie about some woman and her cult and believe it or not there is another Christian Bale movie released this week.

First I'll start with Ted starring Mark Wahlberg, Seth McFarlane, Mila Kunis and the man from yesterdays movie review Giovanni Ribisi. Now Ted as you would imagine is the brain child of actor/producer and writer Seth McFarlane, the man behind the most ridiculous TV show ever Family Guy, actually if you want my honest opinion it's a complete load of shit (pardon the French). Ted however, looks like a whole lot of fun compared to talking cartoon dogs, could my Seth McFarlane opinion be changing? Well, probably not but I do think that Ted looks absolutely hilarious and if the Red-Band trailer is anything to go by then I'm sure we won't be disappointed. In Ted, John is a kid who happens to have a Christmas miracle happen by bringing his best friend and teddy bear Ted to life, problem is once Ted is brought to life he won't turn back to a teddy bear and over time he becomes incredibly inappropriate and offensives, now John (Mark Wahlberg) being an adult must make a decision, does he stay with his girlfriend (The gorgeous Mila Kunis) or ditch her for his crack addict teddy? Check out the trailer, it's the rude one.

Looks funny right? Ok, so maybe you won't go to the pictures to see Ted but it's definitely worth renting on DVD or Blu-ray when it's released.

Now onto that thriller I mentioned above, it's called The Sound Of My Voice and stars Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius and Brit Marling, now I'll be honest I've never even heard of the movie until I started researching this post (yesterday) but a quick flick around the Internet and a few reads later and The Sound of My Voice actually looks pretty good and gets a pretty decent write up. In the movie Brit Marling plays Maggie, the leader of a cult claiming to be from the future, a journalist is assigned to investigate her however things don't go to plan when he and his girlfriend start to feel the draw.

It's a movie I'll probably never get round to seeing myself but I think it was worthy of a mention here, from what I've heard Brit Marling is pretty impressive not only in this but in pretty much everything she has done.

Now I'm not going into any detail on this last movie but it's the one I mentioned above which stars Batman himself Christian Bale, it's called The Flowers of War and looks like it's a Japanese movie, all the other cast involved are people I haven't heard of and I don't think I'll be going to watch this one. The studio have pulled quite a card having it released now, I would imagine they are hoping to ride the Christian Bale wave which is currently surging through the UK box office.