Back in 2012, a stoner comedy about a talking teddy bear was the surprise hit of the summer. Seth MacFarlane's creation Ted took a cool £30 million at the UK box office - an impressive performance for a comedy - while also proving to be popular with critics.
American legend Roger Ebert said: ‘The funniest movie character so far this year is a stuffed teddy bear. And the best comedy screenplay so far is Ted, the saga of the bear's friendship with a 35-year-old manchild’ while The Guardian's Philip Bradshaw called it an ‘unsubtle but very funny comedy'.
In an era where cinema is so heavily reliant on an audience's pre-existing relationships with characters - sequels, comic books and adaptations abound - it's perhaps no surprise that the foul-mouthed furball has returned for Ted 2. Here, we find Ted no longer living with thunder buddy John (Mark Wahlberg) but rather in a state of far from married bliss with new bride Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth).
When Ted and Tami-Lynn decide they want to adopt a child, alarm bells start ringing with the authorities who begin to question whether Ted is actually a person at all. As he loses his job, has his bank account closed and even his marriage revoked, can Ted - with the help of John and novice lawyer Sam Jackson (Amanda Seyfried) get his civil rights restored?
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane's fingerprints are all over Ted 2, as not only the voice of the bear but also as co-writer and director. He is clearly an incredibly successful writer and on talk shows he appears to be a warm, funny and likeable character. With so much going for him it is therefore perplexing as to quite why his films are all so distressingly terrible.
"Mark - another bad review, this time from the excellent Notts based magazine, LeftLion!"
Unlike many others I was no particular fan of Ted, finding that the novelty of a swearing teddy bear wore off really quickly, leaving nothing but wide-eyed fanboydom in its wake.
MacFarlane's follow-up was the 'comedy' Western A Million Days To Die In The West, a film which spectacularly wastes a terrific cast and premise. Painfully unfunny from start to finish - the comedy highlight is MacFarlane's Albert Stark being hit on the head by a plate - it should have set alarm bells ringing in any studio considering handing over $65 million to facilitate another MacFarlane film.
Ted 2 is not in the same league of awful as A Million Ways To Die... but it is still rubbish. Starting with a line about how Americans 'don't give a shit about anything' it's a lazy, lowest common denominator film that has so little quality that it reverts to bodily function jokes at every available opportunity. From a scene about Flash Gordon's sperm count to a man covered in the contents of a baby's nappy - the very last line of the film, for heaven's sake - it's a non-stop conveyor belt of ugly humour that appears to be aimed at a 12 year old boy (who of course can't see Ted 2 as it has a 15 certificate).
As well as lacking in any laughs whatsoever, director MacFarlane has a habit of falling into a trap where he appears not to value the qualities of a film editor. All his films are way, way, way too long and he really needs a trusted collaborator to rein him in and to tell him that not everything he writes and shoots has to end up in the final edit.
Amanda Seyfried does a solid enough job as lawyer Sam L Jackson - you see what they did there - while Mark Wahlberg doesn't so much phone in his performance as mail it on a USB drive from the comfort of his Barbados villa.
There are one or two mildly amusing moments, but even these occur not through the writing but through MacFarlane's regular homages to other films. Just as A Million Ways To Die... had a short Back To The Future moment, Ted 2 calls on your recollection of a number of great films, most notably Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park. What the director doesn't realise is that these sequences only serve to remind you of how brilliant those other films are and how you are watching something so grotesquely inferior.
Like I say, I have no axe to grind with Seth MacFarlane and he seems like a really lovely fella. Sadly, his films are borderline unwatchable, and Ted 2 should be avoided like the plague.
Ted 2 will be in Nottingham cinemas from Friday 10 July 2015.
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