Family Guy + Live Action = Unfunny Movie

Rating: 4/10 (13 November 2012)

This is proof positive that what works in cartoons doesn't translate well to live action. In cartoons, we don't have the real world, so the stupid humor and simple bodily-function jokes work, to a large extent. Translate that same humor to a live action movie and it really hits you how dumb and puerile it is.
Ted, for a start, is inherently unlikeable as a character. To make matters worse, Wahlberg's character is equally hard to empathise with. He spends his days smoking pot with Ted and watching old movies. Both are horribly selfish.
As an example of the sort of humor that you are supposed to find funny I give you this: Upon returning home - to her apartment, no less - Kunis' character finds Ted doing drugs with four prostitutes. That isn't the "funny" part. The supposed humor comes from the fact that, for a dare, one of the hookers has taken a dump on the floor. Cue lots of laughter, right? No? Oh, well then, you must not find it funny either.
This is the kind of humor throughout Ted. Fart and knob jokes, drug-related mirth and other terribly unfunny lines. I guess when you write, star and direct a film you can start to believe your own press, but this is ridiculous.
McFarlane should stick to cartoons. At the very least, he could have tried to make Ted NOT sound exactly like Peter Griffin. They even crack a "joke" about it at one point. Ha, ha! The basic plot is excruciatingly obvious from the start and means you can leave within twenty minutes and know exactly what will happen in the movie. I chuckled a few times, but Ted is far, far, far from funny. Most of the time any attempts at humor fall flat and sometimes the humor is just plain offensive.
Ted is a movie aimed a teens, and pretty juvenile and immature teens at that. It falls neatly into line behind such other recent "comedy" classics as Your Highness, and really makes you wonder how films like this can get greenlit by studios. Is there nothing more worthy to make into a film?
SUMMARY: Don't believe the hype! It's overlong, tedious, unfunny and a waste of two hours. Ted is charmless and boring. I've had more fun sat staring at a dead fly in a dentist's waiting room for thirty minutes. Seriously, give it a miss!