Funny but ends up being what it makes fun of

Rating: 6/10 (9 November 2012)

I've not seen much of Family Guy and the episodes I have seen remind me mostly of Simpsons but of lower quality and an extreme reliance on stereotypes, racial humour and slapstick. Not to say that isn't funny but it gets old fast. When I watched the trailer for this movie and saw that Seth MacFarlane was directing it, I expected more Family Guy humour and lots of the same formula. I was right but I was both delighted and disappointed.
The movie has lots of great, crass and disgusting humour. I don't turn away from raunchy jokes IF done right and the first half has a ton of good jokes. I was laughing all through the first half and I was entertained. But it wasn't just the humour. There was a great quality to the story. It felt a bit more original. It was shaping up to be better than the clichéd story of choice between friend and lover and had much more to do with the relationship of Ted and John than the conflict. Even after the break-up the scene where Ted blames John for his poor choices rather than having to take the whole blame was nicely done and I felt this movie was going places.
Then the second half happened and I was disappointed. MacFarlane proved he didn't have much material apart from his rigid humour and the story fell into the dumb formula it was making fun of in the first half. Jokes here were bad and emotional scenes really fell flat. This guy doesn't have the imagination and the variety that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have or the broad political satire of the Simpsons writers. He sticks to the tried and tested and that gets very old very fast.
Disappointed by the second half but I'll recommend the first half to any fan of the wacky humour present in all of MacFarlane's works or anyone who enjoys these sort of raunchy comedies.