sweet, occasionally funny

Rating: 6/10 (31 December 2012)

Ted is a movie that defies a couple of expectations. First off, it's a movie about a magical thing in which that magical thing is made ordinary. Normally, if a character starts talking to a ghost, or his computer develops sentience, or he adopts an alien, the movie focuses a lot on how difficult this is to hide. But in this movie, the magical Ted is just a fact of life that everyone accepts.
The other surprise is that even though the movie is from the guy who does Family Guy, it's not just a crazed series of sick jokes. Instead, it's a genuinely sweet, though often outrageous, movie about a man's reluctance to grow up, with his attachment to childhood portrayed in an ingeniously literal way.
But while Wahlberg and Kunis have terrific chemistry and the movie has some really funny scenes (notably a double date gone wrong), I never really got into it. The humor is mild, and once you understand that it will veer into sudden perverse jokes now and again, just a tiny bit predictable.
I appreciate that the film's creator wanted to do something more than twisted Family Guy-style comedy, but I don't feel he nailed it. Without the sort of I-can't-believe-I-just-heard-that comedy of his series, this is just a cute take-off on a kid's movie that never quite catches fire.
But it's so likable that I feel guilty for not liking it more.