With the success of Ted a few years ago, a sequel was inevitable even though there seemed no good reason to continue the story. Ted 2 is the result, offering a forced attempt to recapture some of the magic that made the first film work so well, yet missing the whole point drastically.
Set a few years after the events of the first film, Ted 2 sees Ted and Tammy married and wanting to have children, whilst John is single again having seemingly proven that, contrary to the message of the first film, love won’t make opposites attract. When Ted then has to legally prove that he is a person not an object, the thunder buddies seek assistance from a fresh faced lawyer (Siegfried) to help them. Cue a series of sketches mashed together in a desperate attempt to pad out almost 2 hours of film.
What made the first film work was that, whilst it retained the MacFarlane style of comedy that we know from Family Guy, it was structured like a film with a flowing story to spin the gags off. The sequel seems like it could very well just be a mash up of a few episodes of Family Guy, including those zany cutaway moments that the show is notorious for. In fact, switch Ted with Brian, and you genuinely have a plot for the cartoon, the disadvantage being that Family Guy episodes are 20 minutes long, whereas this is almost 2 hours.
"Seriously? Two hours?"
But, hey, who cares about plot? This is a comedy! Well, sadly the puns fall flat, with only two moments in the whole film managing to spark a chuckle put of me, whilst the rest of the film was spent in stony silence. The sparkle that brought Ted to life is simply gone. A sub plot involving Donny (Ribisi reprising his role from the first film) is not only familiar, but pretty much the exact same sub plot from before. By the time the action locates to New York Comic Con, and two background actors get to jokingly dress up as characters they used to play in old TV shows, boredom has set in so much that you just want it all to be over.
All in all, Ted 2 is the kind of comedy sequel that makes you think that perhaps Hangover 2 wasn’t too bad…Heck, even Hangover 3 was a better laugh! The charm, wit, and magic is all missing, replaced with lazy, formulaic hack comedy, proving that, as expected, Ted was a film that didn’t need continuing.
