Ted (15) **

Ted (15) **

Dir: Seth MacFarlane

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis

Synopsis: A lonely 8 year old boy wishes his Christmas present teddy bear would come to life to be his friend. When this comes true, they are the best of friends, but far from being an overly positive friend, Ted drinks, smokes dope and gets up to all manner of things.

Verdict: There's a lot of hype surrounding this film, the first from MacFarlane in a directorial role, and, unfortunately, it felt as though it didn't quite live up to that.

Don't get me wrong, it was hilarious and had a multitude of cameos and references to the geek pop culture that MacFarlane is famous for loving and referencing in Family Guy, but that was one of the reasons why I didn't think it lived up to the hype. It felt like a long episode of the show, with added American Dad and the Bad Idea Bears from Avenue Q. It didn't help the matter that the voice that he used for the title character sounded so much like Peter Griffin, and with Kunis who famously voices Meg, it all seemed a bit too familiar.

The humour is typical of MacFarlane: fart jokes, references to drugs, alcohol, sex and mocking celebrities and pop-culture. All of which will make this film a huge hit with fans of his work, and while I do love Family Guy and American Dad, thanks to BBC3 showing it constantly, it is starting to lose its appeal, just as E4 killed Friends and Dave is killing Top Gear.

Sadly, the story was all too familiar as well, and the cheesy ending was so expected that I willed him to do it differently just to, as he so often does in his TV shows, stick a middle finger up at the standard plot.

Having said all this, there are aspects I enjoyed about the film. For one, MacFarlanes ability to get all sorts of celebrity cameos in his work is great, building up contacts and friendships through his TV series', he has a lot of people to call on to help him get his point across and make jokes work.

The way Wahlberg and Kunis work together is good as well, with Wahlberg's child-like man and Kunis trying to help him grow up, and the way they, everyone else in the film, and the environment/props interact with Ted who, while filming, obviously doesn't exist is great.

As far as special effects go the teddy bear is also really well animated, to a point where you could almost believe that there was an actual bear come to life - especially with the fur, and the way they show his age so similarly to what happens to a much loved stuffed toy shows the bad-ass attitude of the character. Coupled with the interaction aspect that he has on the 'real' world, there is a lot more that goes into making him work than you might think.

All in all, this might just be another one of those films that I just don't get too well, such as The Hangover, which is hailed as hilarious and didn't make me roar with laughter the way I felt I was supposed to.