The Dukes See a Movie: Ted

Going in to this movie I did not know what to expect. I hoped it would be enjoyable because I am a fan of Mark Walhberg and Mila Kunis. I was a little worried as well because this was the first time Seth Macfarlane had ever made a movie, let alone a live action anything. It did have a few other things going for it as well like the supporting cast. Man was that a quality supporting cast. They had Joel McHale, Giovanni Ribisi, Patrick Warburton, Tom Skerritt (as himself) and Tom J. Jones (as himself). They had Flash Gordon in this movie playing himself. How awesome is that?!

Woo!! Tom Jones!!

So in my mind I went in excited about the cast, but a little worried about everything else. The moment the movie started I could feel all my worries starting to slip away as I listened to the dulcet tones of Patrick Stewart as he said the follow line "Now if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that nothing is more powerful than a young boy's wish. Except an Apache helicopter. An Apache helicopter has machine guns AND missiles. It is an unbelievably impressive complement of weaponry, an absolute death machine." With that line the movie had appealed to the boy inside me and he had accepted their offering. So my adult self was pushed to the back, and was not allowed to participate in the viewing of this movie.

The movie starts out with a young boy who has no friends at all. For Christmas he gets a teddy bear and that night he wishes on a star that his bear were real. After the narrator mentions the power of wishes and helicopters we see the young John wake up and meet his recently life-infused bear. As you might suspect the boy freaks out as do his parents when they are introduced to this creature. Can you imagine what you would do if you saw a teddy bear and it spoke to you? Unless it was a teddy ruxpin bear I would attempt to destroy it so it couldn't eat my soul. That might just be me though. I saw a terrible show when I was a child about a possessed teddy bear and I have never been the same.

How I see all teddy bears.

Flash forward 26 years. John (Mark Wahlberg) and the bear Ted have both grown up. They still are best friends, but now they are adult slackers. They drink, smoke pot and watch TV most of the time (I think I should get a prize because I only do one of the three). John has been dating Lori (Mila Kunis) for the past four years. She is starting to get a little fed up with the lack of change in their relationship and she wants to take it to the next level, but she feels like that is impossible if John continues to spend all his free time with Ted.

In the end I really quite enjoyed this movie. This isn't the type of movie that makes you think (see above where I talk about the boy in me being in charge of the movie viewing). It doesn't have a lot of shocking twist and turns or important morals, but I did not expect it to. To best describe the movie it felt like Family Guy back when Seth Macfarlane still cared about it and wasn't in it just because Fox won't let anything popular die. You could tell that he put all of his creative energy in this project and it showed in the quality of the work. So if you do not mind crude humor this might be one for you, but if you have a higher moral code (good for you if you do) then this movie is a no go.

Rating 4 stars