Seth MacFarlane’s Ted 2 has been icily received by some American reviewers, on the grounds that it failed to do anything other than make them laugh an awful lot at press screenings. There seemed a lot of laughter at the screening I attended. Gasps that loud for a horror movie would mean raves were on the way. But this is a different genre. I can only say that whatever career notes MacFarlane has hit wrong recently, the Teds aren’t among them. This film, co-written by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, is the uproarious and incorrect sequel to the stoner fantasy-satire Ted, from 2012. It is all about John, the irresponsible kidult guy whose emotional paralysis somehow magics into life his childhood teddy bear, which has grown into a potty-mouthed slacker, bong enthusiast and loyal best friend. Mark Wahlberg returns as John and MacFarlane again voices Ted, whose human-ursine marriage to Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth) is under strain, as the government has blocked their attempts to adopt a child because Ted is not a real “person”. So the guys hire idealistic young lawyer Samantha L Jackson (Amanda Seyfried) to take Ted’s case to the highest court in the land to prove his essential humanity. Beginning with an audacious Busby Berkeley pastiche over the opening credits, Ted 2 is a torrent of outrageous gags: uncompromisingly silly, cheerfully offensive, and funny.
