Review of “Ted 2”

Short review because I’m pressed for time and it’s late:

It’s actually better than the first Ted in terms of LOL moments, at least for the first half of the movie. Somewhere in the second half, it loses its charm and turns into exactly what all the bad reviews were damning it for.

The movie is pretty much split into four weird sections: A first quarter, a second quarter, a sixth and then a final third act (that all adds up to 1, so it’s actually mathematically correct wow trigonometry finally paid off). The first three sections all had one real LOL moment a piece, and a ton of chuckles in between (for me, LOL moments are EXTREMELY rare in anything, movies or otherwise, so three inside of the first hour and a half of a movie is amazing).

The final third should’ve been the best, and it probably was on paper, yet in execution it fell super flat. It just *spoiler* rehashes the original movie’s ending except for that it tries to be way more emotional and serious, then comes off as insincere when it actually tries to make up for being too serious with stupid jokes. By that point, you’re just wondering: why bother trying to be emotionally weighty then immediately try to erase that beat, poorly done as it was, with even more poorly done cheap audience-apology gags? Why not forfeit the cheesy emotion and subsequent flat rebound jokes altogether, and just make a FUNNY third act that doesn’t take itself too seriously… y’know, like the rest of the movie?

Overall, good movie. If I used Jeremy Jahns’s scale, I’d say I was just barely on the other side of the fence than him, with this movie earning a “good time, no alcohol required” seal of approval (his review branded it a good time if you’re drunk, the least negative rating he has).

SPOILER ALERT: The three LOL moments I was referencing, in order of appearance:

-Very first main scene: Gay guy “tosses a mean salad” joke, hilarious

-Final scene of second quarter: Improvisation comedy club bit (I cringed at first when they said Robin Williams, but the 9/11 and Bill Cosby comments were priceless, as well as when they’re chiding the guy for not using their suggestions)

-Road trip bit (part of that one-sixth of the movie before the third act): the pot farm Jurassic Park theme song moment

Other especially funny stuff that weren’t quite LOL-worthy (SPOILER ALERT STILL ACTIVE):

-A great cameo that happens fairly early on in the movie (first quarter) is so cool that I won’t even spoil it here, as it’s really worth discovering on your own. Hint: it happens in a bar.

-During Ted’s initial court case there is a joke about how Steven Tyler can be considered human but Ted can’t. Hahaha.

–Law and Order theme song sing-along

-Ted’s initial “What the fuck!” as he discovers John’s massive porn stash. The line is just delivered so full of shock and horror, it’s priceless.

Super last weird final note thing: Remember how in the original movie Mark Wahlberg ran through that fifty-item list of white-trash girl names? Well, he was supposed to have a list of fifty fictional movie characters for this movie’s finale scene at Comic-Con, but it got cut for some reason. I thought it would’ve fit really nicely, and Mark even did it during an interview on the Graham Norton Show.

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