Good Fun, but Just as Simple as Family Guy

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2015)

If you're looking to watch Ted by Seth MacFarlane, just don't expect it to be filled with "smart" comedy. Notice it is the exact same type of humor you can find in Family Guy or in any of his other shows, except this time it is done in a live action fashion.
The premise is that John Bennett is an outcast as a kid (which is hard to believe when he grows up to be Mark Wahlberg), and on Christmas he receives a teddy bear and wishes for it to come alive which it does the next morning. This isn't a moment just thrown into the beginning to set up how the profane, obnoxious, titular bear came to be - this sequence has some top notch MacFarlane humor to it to give us a sense of the comedic tone of the movie.
The rest of the plot is pretty much to give the movie a plot around all the comedic bits - John struggles in a relationship with his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) since Ted still lives with them while an obsessed fan of Ted's wants him for his son Robert. That's it.
As I said, the tone is reminiscent of Family Guy in that some of the gags are clearly in the same layout as the cutaways in Family Guy. With Ted sounding very similar to Peter Griffin (but not exactly like him as MacFarlane explains in an interview), at points Ted becomes a meta-film, especially when Ted specifically states "I do not sound THAT much like Peter Griffin."
In a sense, this movie is kind of like Pinocchio... except for grown-ups... and not as smart. Put this movie on if you are just looking for something simple, yet enjoyable.