Mediocre Writing and Poor Pacing Snuffs Out THIS Teddy Bear

Rating: 2/10 (2 July 2012)

I feel like the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes, but I just saw "Ted" and it's one of the worst films I have seen in many years. I was SO disappointed. It has been getting many great reviews while also garnering a few poor ones. I really wanted to like it. Before I saw it, I was thinking that at the worst, I would think it was a stupidly dumb, but pretty funny or even mildly funny raunchy comedy. Unfortunately, it wasn't even that. Yes, it was raunchy, but it really wasn't all that funny. So many jokes landed with a thud. On top of that, the film was so poorly paced. I got maybe 5 or 10 laughs out of it. A reknown local reviewer mentioned that one of the local actors got off, perhaps, the best line in the film. I waited for that line, and after it happened, I thought to myself, "THAT is the best line in the film?!?!???".
It started out promising, actually, a bit of a tongue-in-cheek poke at Christmas movies, but that smartness wasn't sustained. To me, a great high/low brow movie comedy like "There's Something About Mary" is a model for other movies, being smart and lowbrow at the same time. Even "Animal House" has writing which is SO much better than "Ted". Again, the pace at times was slow, which is pretty deadly for a movie like this, where the jokes should keep coming, fast and furious.
And then it turned into maudlin, with typical boy loses girl, gets girl back type plot points. I won't give it away, but it was not good.
Too bad. See it at your own risk. Hey, I might be in the minority.