Ted

Expectations:
As everyone knows, Ted was sold on the fact that it is the creation of Seth McFarlane of Family Guy fame. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Family Guy. It is funny, but it has too many stupid, stupid moments for me. However, there is no denying that McFarlane and crew are geniuses when it comes to creating stories and characters. Because I knew of McFarlane's genius, I knew that I would be pleased with the outcome of Ted. The trailer was hilarious... The idea was amazing... And there was even a great cast. The only unsure thing was whether or not McFarlane could create a complete story with some substance over the course of one and a half hours.

Plot:
Much to my surprise, there was a fairly deep plot for a comedy. Actually, it was too deep. There was this huge attempt to establish some sort of emotional connection to the characters, which works in some comedies. However, it did not work with Ted. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't awful, but it would have been much better if they had gone with the straight up raw, dirty comedic approach. It is just so hard to take a talking teddy bear seriously.

Characters:
While the connection or plot between the characters was not so great, the individual characters were, for the most part, decent. The only big problem I had character-wise was that Ted was not quite the center of attention. It really felt like John (Mark Wahlberg) was the main character. I have nothing wrong with Mark Wahlberg, but, when you have a character as great as Ted, you have to run with that 100%.

Negatives: As I have said before, Mila Kunis rarely impresses me (save Friends with Benefits), and she let me down once again, as Lori Collins, in Ted. I don't know why, but I just don't like her! Lori's boss, Rex (played by Joel McHale), was probably the worst character of the entire film. While I don't usually care for Kunis, I find Joel McHale quite funny, so I was a bit surprised. Finally, Donny, played by Giovanni Ribisi, was an extremely low point plot-wise. Donny shouldn't have been in the film at all, but oh well.

Positives: As expected, Ted (voice by Seth McFarlane) stole the show as far as characters are concerned. He was a brilliant creation, and I wish I was half the genius that McFarlane is. Aside from Ted, there were a couple of other performances that I thought impressive. Patrick Warburton, as Guy, and Sam Jones, as himself, added a great amount of comedic relief to the attempt at a serious plot. However, there weren't that many great characters, further proving the need to focus on Ted.

Conclusion:
I just want to say how excited I was to see billions of people at the movie theater this past weekend. While my expectations for Ted were high, I had no clue that it would make $54 million in its first weekend. Kudos to America for almost making me run out of gas trying to find a parking spot! As far as Ted goes, I wasn't completely impressed. Let's just say that, if I would have run out of gas, it wouldn't have been worth it. The movie was funny, don't get me wrong. It just could have been much, much better. With the great amount of money made, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Ted sequel or a similar production from McFarlane and crew. Maybe they will learn from past mistakes and make up for it the second time through. I give Ted 2.77 out of 5 stars.