Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Ted 2

Michael Jordan was one of the best basketball players ever, but his aborted MLB career proved he couldn't play baseball worth a damn.  Pre-Jesus George Bush could party like a rock star, but he couldn't really President.  Madonna has made countless millions as a singer, but her acting is so bad even guards at Gitmo refuse to use it to torture terrorists.

Which brings us to Seth MacFarlane.  MacFarlane's proven beyond a five o'clock shadow of a doubt that he knows how to make people piss their pants laughing with Family Guy and his other half-hour, animated TV shows.  Unfortunately, his comic chops don't translate to the big screen.  2012's Ted, a story about a pot-smoking, foul-mouthed, sentient teddy bear, was hit or miss at best.  Last year's A Million Ways to Die in the West offered up fewer laughs than words in its title.  And now with Ted 2 he manages to shit the bed worse than his last two mattress-destroying outings combined. 

Have you ever spent a day hanging out with your buddy and his old college roommate, and their entire conversation consisted of private jokes and pop-culture references you couldn't decipher with the Rosetta Stone?  Ted 2 is exactly like that.  Ted (voiced by MacFarlane) and John ("Marky" Mark Wahlberg) can't go two minutes without talking about black cocks . . . because?  Though neither has attended college, they make fun of Arizona State University . . . because?  They sing their own made up lyrics to the Law & Order theme song . . . because?

Because the dump trucks full of money MacFarlane's made off of Family Guy have convinced him that "Random = Funny."  Ted 2 is a mathematical proof to the contrary.  Sure, done right, random references and happenings can be fucking hilarious.  Witness all the unexpected-nut-shot videos on YouTube.  Random things just being random for the sake of randomosity?  Not so much. 

The real Jenna Jameson-sized gaping hole in Ted 2, though, is the third of it that forgets it's supposed to be a comedy and goes all Lifetime-movie-of-the-week serious about equal rights and loved ones' deaths.  Seriously, you're cruising along - albeit at a snail's pace - watching Ted and John get high and talk about "the homos," and suddenly you're in a law school lecture about Dred Scott and the 13th Amendment.

It's exactly like if Blazing Saddles had stopped mid-movie for a 30-minute, stone-faced reparations negotiation with the local Native American tribe, or right after the toga party in Animal House all the Delta brothers went to sit by Bluto's bedside for a week while he finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer.

Now that I think about it, both of those examples would still be funnier than Ted 2.

And will someone, please, for the love of Emma Stone's perfect little tits, get MacFarlane a fucking editor?!  The 115-minute long Ted 2 needs the opening credits big-budget dance number, the five-minute black hole of Amanda "Mila's Replacement" Seyfried's guitar song and the 100% recycled Donny-wants-to-kidnap-Ted subplot like I need a Sriracha enema.