Movie Madness: Ted 2

Welcome back to another Movie Madness post! Apologies for this being slighter later in the week than normal - I forgot to post it up, d'oh!

So I went to see Ted 2 at the cinema a week or so ago, and I'm sorry, but I just have to say that this is probably the worst film I've seen in a long long time. It's not even so bad it's funny - it's just bad. Ted 2 is set a couple of years after the original film; Ted is now married, but when he and his wife decide to have a baby, it turns out that Ted isn't considered to be a real person which means they can't adopt. Ted has to face the courts and prove that he's more than just a teddy bear, but he not only faces opposition from the law - he also has to try and outwit a toy company that want to experiment on him so they can mass-produce talking teddies.

This film is stupid. I was going to try and soften the blow a bit, but then I thought, what's the point? There's just no getting over how much I disliked this film. Bearing in mind that I am a huge Family Guy fan, and that I didn't completely hate the first film, I was really disappointed in this one. It really felt like that this film was made just for the sake of being made.

I'm actually struggling to come up with any good points, so I can turn this into a real review instead of just a rant, but I can't think of any. There was only one moment during the whole film where I laughed out loud; the rest of the time the jokes simply fell flat for me. This film uses exactly the same humour as the first one, and while that might have been fresh and new in Ted, in this film, it now just feels old. I feel like Seth Macfarlane has just one type of humour if that makes sense, which is why Ted/Ted 2/A Million Ways to Die in the West all feel like exactly the same film. It just seems like he's incapable of mixing it up a bit, or trying to appeal to a wider audience. But then again, given the success of Family Guy etc, why would he?

Ted 2 even has the same bad guy as the first one (Giovanni Ribisi, who always plays villains a bit too well...) - once again Donny is determined to get his hands on Ted and in his desperation, he'll do anything to kidnap him. I can understand why films choose to bring back certain bad guys - if the conflict is set up well, then I honestly don't mind if heroes have to fight their nemesis again and again. But in Ted 2, it felt like Donny was only brought back simply because they couldn't be bothered to think of another antagonist.

Amanda Seyfried plays the new love interest, and although I generally think she's a good actress, in this film it really seemed like she was just an add-on/eye candy. I wasn't sold at all on her and John's relationship; it felt really contrived and awkward. I actually spent a lot of the film admiring her wardrobe - it was a welcome distraction from the rest of the film. Morgan Freeman also puts in a surprise appearance, though why he chose to appear in a film like this, I'll never know. But I enjoyed listening to his voice, as always, so I guess that's a positive.

I'm sorry if this review isn't as good as my normal Movie Madness posts, but I just really didn't like it. If you're a die-hard Family Guy/Ted/Seth Macfarlane fan, then you'll probably like it; but to everyone else, my advice is to steer well clear and spend your money on something else instead.

Have you seen Ted 2? What did you think? Am I being a bit harsh, or was this film actually awful?