Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (16 July 2012)

One of the few joys left in my life is watching "The Family Guy" and re- runs of it. I was instantly fascinated by it's satirical humor and unrelated references and cutting-off-to-flashbacks and extempore- breaking-into-song-sequences and while I was painfully watching it's sheen and gloss fade away, I was still hopeful of a few flashes of genius from the man at it's helm. So, it was obvious that ever since TED was announced and subsequently released, I was waiting eagerly.
The movie let me down! Big time! Here're the reasons:

May be I had too many expectations when I was hoping to see a bit of Family Guy rub off on the big screen, sort of, Stewie-Brian banter and chatter, their rantings, experiences, travels etc. This had nothing of the sort! Ted was no Brian and John (Mark) was no Stewie! Yeah there were expletive-filled rants and tangential chatter but nothing as endearing as the real thing. May be, just being wishful here, if Seth had Stewie dub in for Mark, it'd somehow had gotten everything to fall in place including the original camaraderie.

Mila Kunis is the center-piece of this story! Come-on now, having seen Family Guy for all these seasons, who'd like Meg to be the main character!? Every time John would go shout at Ted for not letting him be with her, I would cringe in my seat! The moment I heard Mila utter her first word, all I could see was a girl with round specs in a purple hat all the time! And Mr. Seth, you just can't let Meg have that attention! She's got to get trashed around! And the bit that killed me: it's like Meg and Brian are being held at the same level vying for John's attention! I don't care if it's John or Peter or whoever! You just can't hold Meg and a character like that of a Brian on the same ground!

In the hall, I had a Jew sitting in the front, an Asian on my left, a Mexican on my right and a black man behind me. So, even if I wanted to, I couldn't laugh at lot of places. If you're wondering how I found about the Jew, well, he was laughing the hardest in the first kid scene.

No impromptu songs! I half expected TED to be a musical but too bad it wasn't. The only thing that came close was Mark's singing on the stage and if that's the excuse you give me for a musical, I would rather watch a TFG episode starring Meg alone!

So, there you go Mr. Macfarlane. Not so successful directional debut and yeah, while you'd be singing your way to the bank, you've lost some more respect among your TFG legions.