Thunder Buddies for Life

Rating: 8/10 (2 August 2012)

For a long time Family Guy's quality has been going downwards more and more. At the same time Seth MacFarlane was making his first feature film and his first foray in live-action, Ted and it was clear what his MacFarlane was putting his efforts into.
In 1985 an 8-year-old boy, John Bennett (Bretton Manley) is a lonely boy with no friends who gets a teddy bear for Christmas. John wishes for the bear to come alive and guess what, he does. Ted quickly fame rises and falls and by 2012, he is a stoner loser living with John (now Mark Walhberg) and his girlfriend of four years, Lori (Mila Kunis). But when John has to choose between the two and the Ted habit is very hard to crack.
Ted is simply a very funny film with various type of comedy, from excellent lines, risky humour we know from Family Guy, slapstick and fights and some gross out/crude jokes. There are only three cutaway gags in the whole film, one of them being a flashback and the other two are at least linked to the leading scene: so people do not like that style of humour do not worry. Whilst there is a bit of swearing unlike other R-rated films the swearing is not the only use of humour.
As a story Ted is similar to Shaun of the Dead, that John has to pick his long time girlfriend that he lets down or his loyal childhood friend that is bad for him. It is a choose between friendship or romance, who should you be loyal to and a character trying to balance his life with two people he loves but do not get on. The other Simon Pegg/Nick Frost that Ted is similar to is Paul because Ted, a CGI, mo-cap character has very adult tendencies: he is a character he enjoys recreational drugs, women, prostitutes and a crass sense of humour. There are worst things to do then be similar to two Pegg/Frost films Walhberg has shown in recent years he has real comic talent and with MacFarlane has great relationship together. They both have get comic timing with their lines and the physical comedy. Kunis played the straight man role in Ted, but she has her moments and is solid with the duo. MacFarlane also get some of his Family Guy alumna in some small roles and was able to provide some fun celebrity cameos. The party sequence was hilarious and was much more fun and on the same level of realism as the offensive Project X.
MacFarlane and his writers were able tie together the rom-com/bromance storyline with two major subplots very well and unlike what Family Guy can be, Ted is more focused on the story front. Occasionally it felt like the film did drag, but for the most part it is very Ted is what you get when MacFarlane actually puts effort into his work and when he focuses on a story. MacFarlane can be a very good writer when he gets the balances of being risky without being offensive just for the hell of it.
On a final note, it is good to see a jokes in a trailer actually being used in the film they are promoting.