Ted

Could somebody refresh my memory on this? At some point last year, I had made a list of the top ten movies that I was looking forward to the most in the year 2012, and I am having a hard time remembering whether or not I had included this movie in the countdown. Either way, I can at least say that I was at least a little bit hyped for this movie. However, when I saw the trailer for this movie, the excitement that I had was a little diminished, especially when I heard the voice of the teddy bear and immediately thought "Peter Griffin as a bear", which was a bit of a letdown for me. I always knew that Seth MacFarlane was a talented voice actor and to hear him use a voice that he had already used a thousand times over was a bit of a cop out in my opinion. However, that didn't really keep me from wanting to see the movie. And to be honest, this movie didn't disappoint. It was nice to see Seth MacFarlane take a break from the political preaching that he has done so often on Family Guy and just give us a good fun comedy that was nowhere near clean or child-friendly. For starters, we have Patrick Stewart narrating and using phrases like "nobody gives a shit". Hearing that alone in the first five minutes of the movie had me pretty much sold. Even though we didn't get to hear Professor Xavier narrate anymore until the end of the movie, it was still a nice touch. A few other good pointers include Joel McHale as a slimy douchebag (or Joel McHale) and Mila Kunis as the girlfriend who loves Mark Wahlberg, but also wants him to get his life on track. Their relationship was pretty believable and you can at least see where both parties are coming from. And while I did have my doubts initially about the actual bear himself, I really do have to say that Seth did deliver playing the title character. Initially, I thought the deal with the bear was that he would have stayed in a child mindset while Mark Wahlberg grew up and matured. But having him grow up and, not exactly mature, was nice too. And I didn't feel like this was just Peter Griffin as a bear, I actually feel like I can detach the two characters and see them as they are. All in all, I would say that this movie was far from dissapointing and I plan on purchasing this one on blu-ray.

Final Grade: A+