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Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried
Director: Seth MacFarlane
Running Time: 115 mins
Ted 2 is an American film and the sequel to Ted. Following his marriage to Tami-Lynn, Ted finds that the State of Massachusetts has declared him not to be human, leading him and John to work with a young lawyer to get Ted his civil rights.
Surprisingly, this really is just as funny as the first film. Despite Seth MacFarlane’s terrible failure last year with A Million Ways To Die In The West, this sequel is a laugh-a-minute ride with a genuinely interesting and intelligent plot, coupled with the typically foul-mouthed and idiotic humour that makes this such a funny concept.
Let’s start with what made the first film such a huge hit, the brilliant comedy. It’s exactly the same deal the second time round, with a cute little teddy bear behaving incredibly badly and swearing his mouth off, but the consistency of the humour in this sequel means that that retains the shock value that you got in the first film, making for even more ridiculous laughs here.
I would even say that this might be even funnier than the previous film, because there’s less emphasis on the idea that Ted is a living teddy bear, and more slapstick and offensive comedy thrown in there. Be warned that there really is some dark humour here that is so topical that many might be properly offended, but it really works well as something to shock you even more (however, those jokes will become dated within a year, so that’s marks down in that respect).
Due to the extreme quantity of gags here, there are without doubt a hell of a lot of ones that fall flat on their face, but the fact that there are still so many brilliant hits throughout cancels that out, meaning that you’re still laughing whenever something stupid is happening, because it’s such a rapid-fire comedy.
Away from that aspect, this has also, strangely, got quite an intelligent and intriguing dramatic plot alongside about Ted’s battle for civil rights. It genuinely raises some interesting points about historical and current perspectives on justice and civil rights that keep you properly engaged in the sequences where there is no comedy, which is something quite extraordinary for a Seth MacFarlane comedy, but it works well.
Finally, the plot on the whole is very well-constructed (although towards the end it loses a little bit of focus), and the narrative is consistently interesting enough to be properly entertaining, whilst the brilliantly funny humour adds to the enjoyability factor even more, so that’s why I’m giving this an 8.0.