Funny and (surprisingly) not that crude

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2012)

John Bennett gets a giant teddy bear for Christmas when he's about 10. He wishes it will be his best friend for life. The next day the bear magically comes to life and can walk and talk and promises to always be John's best friend. Cut to 25 years later. John (Mark Wahlberg) lives with his hot girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) and Ted (voice of Seth MacFarlane) is living with them. Lori makes an ultimatum--Ted or her. John picks her--but can him and Ted live without each other? Funny and not as crude as you might think. This is being pushed as a comedy with a foul-mouthed teddy bear. Granted--Ted makes crude, racist, homophobic and sexist jokes but not that many. He's comes off as a funny and sweet bear (I can't believe I just typed that!). In many ways this is (story-wise) very familiar. It has a guy in love with a girl but his best buddy is always around. She makes him choose. He picks her. The best friend leaves. Tragedy strikes etc etc. It's very obvious how this will all end. Still I did laugh long and loud more than once.
There are constant reference to one of my favorite movies--the 1980 version of "Flash Gordon"--John and Ted love it too! They take scenes and music from the movie and Sam J. Jones (Flash) pops up also.! As I said before most of the jokes are offensive but VERY funny. This was shot in Boston and I've never seen Boston look so GREAT on the big screen! They perfectly use the locations. Also Kunis is great (and very beautiful) in her role. Wahlberg is no more than adequate but it works. Also look for cameos from Ryan Reynolds (he doesn't have a word of dialogue) and Tom Skerritt! And Ted is just adorable and VERY likable (even when he's swearing a blue streak). Predictable but funny. I give it a 7.