Movie Spoiler TED (2012) starring Mark Wahlberg - after capsule review

Comic hyphenate Seth MacFarlane (best known for The Family Guy) makes his feature length debut in Ted, one of them Hollywood man-child-learns-to-be-man-and-stop-being-a-child comedies.  However, the new twist is that its protagonist John (played with the usual humorous earnestness from Mark Wahlberg, who seems to be branching out more into comedy) has an anthropomorphic teddy bear (the CGI creature is voiced mostly by MacFarlane Brian Griffin-style) who has been his best friend since childhood.  His girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) does not approve of the stuffed animal's pot-infused influence.  What separates this movie from most of the rest is MacFarlane's wicked sense-of-humor.  His crass, witty, and pop-culture sensibilities permeate the standard stock of the plot mechanics, which aren't always predictable.  Giovanni Ribisi does a sendup of himself as a disturbed long-term admirer of Ted in a performance worthy of Crispin Glover's best work.  

[Image via IMP Awards]

Movie Spoiler Summary
The Universal picture opens with its normal logo and then zooms in Google Maps style to the childhood home of John Bennett (played by Bretton Manley).  It's 1985 outside Boston on Christmas and "children gather together and beat up the Jewish kids," as the narrator (Patrick Stewart) informs us.  John retreats to his bedroom (where he has a poster of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), and the next morning, he opens his presents.  He receives a stuffed bear and names him Ted.  That night, he makes a wish to be best friends with him forever and a star falls while he's asleep.  The next morning on Boxing Day, Ted comes alive.  He can talk and move.  John shares the discovery with his parents (Ralph Garman, Swan Lady Alex Borstein) who freak out at first.  The father threatens to get a weapon and Ted responds, "Is it a huggin' gun?"  The parents quickly warm up to him.  "It's a Christmas miracle.  You're just like the baby Jesus."  Ted becomes a national celebrity, as we watch through montage of news reports and a guest spot on Johnny Carson using a real clip Forrest Gump-style.  "For some reason I thought you were going to be taller."  "I thought you were going to be funnier."  John and Ted vow to be "thunder buddies for life."  "Where are John and Teddy today? ... no matter how big a splash you make in this world, whether you are Corey Feldman, Frankie Muniz, Justin Bieber or a talking teddy bear, eventually, nobody gives a shit."  Roll Norah Jones song playing over opening title sequence of a montage of photos, where John and Ted spend time with each other through the years as John grows up, including Ted pretending to be in an animatronics presentation, going to see The Phantom Menace on opening day, and introducing John's girlfriend Lori Collins (Mila Kunis) into the picture.  

Cue to present time, where Ted (now voiced by MacFarlane in his Family Guy Brian Griffin voice) is getting stoned on a couch.  He lives with the grownup John (now played by Mark Wahlberg).  John informs him that he's going to be taking her to dinner, "You don't think she's expecting something big, do you?"  "What, like anal?"  Ted drives the late John to work at Liberty Rent-a-Car and damages another vehicle in the process.  His boss Thomas (Matt Walsh) calls him in and tells him that he needs to shape up just a little bit, as he'll be promoted soon: "All you got to do is not fuck up."  Thomas also has a photo of himself with Tom Skerrit.  Afterwards, his coworker (Patrick Warburton) is in bad shape, and can't remember anything from the night before.  John asks him, "Do you think you're part of some gay beat-up underworld, like one of those gay beat-up clubs or something?"  The discussion turns to girlfriends.  The coworker: "My last relationship was like six months, then she farted in her sleep and I'm like, 'I'm outgha here, man.'  I was gone before she woke up." He also gives him random advice about his upcoming dinner date, "Put the ring in her ass, let her fart it out."

John and Ted watch Flash Gordon stoned and start talking about Lori, who arrives shortly.  They joke about people's names that rhyme with "brewski" as they grab some beers.  "Couple of Charles Bukowski's."  "Couple of Bruce Doevski's."  Maybe a Mike Breguslowski?"  "Perhaps a Teddy Bruschi?"  Lori joins in, but fails to meet Ted's standards.  "You know what I think I too want a Martina Navratibrewski."  The guys disagree with her use of the joke.  "Bullshit, that totally works."  John: "It doesn't work.  The name has to have a 'ski' at the end of it and you just put brewski at the end of Martina Navratilova, so ..."  Ted: "It has to have a 'ski' at the end of it or otherwise where's the challenge?  If there's no "ski' at the end of the root word, then we would just be idiots saying nonsense."  That night, while they prepare for bed, thunder sounds and thunder buddy Ted runs in and sleeps with them for the evening, much to Lori's dismay.  The next day, she's late to work and her rich, successful, attractive boss Rex (Joel McHale) calls her into his office and hits on her, which she isn't receptive to.  At the restaurant that night, she calls him out for taking food home for Ted.  "What are you, five years old?"  "Yeah, but I read at a six-year-old level."  They drink Cristal ("Hey, all those rich black people can't be wrong") and recollect their first meeting differently.  Her memory involves him pulling out some Marky Mark moves at a dance club, resulting in him accidentally punching her.  His recollection is more like Saturday Night Fever, ending with him scissoring her waist, while she spins him around the dance floor.  She isn't pleased when instead of a ring, he gives her earrings.  At home in the car, she has to call his lost cell phone, which emits the Death Star theme.  Inside, Ted is hanging out with four prostitues.  Lori is disgusted when she sees a shit on the floor.  

Sauvignon Blanc, Angelique, Ted, Cherene, Heavenly

John has a talk with Ted at the aquarium and informs him that he has to move out.  The next day, John takes him to get a job, where he's interviewed by manager of a grocery store Frank Stevens (Bill Smitrovich from Life Goes On).  "Do you think you got what it takes?"  "I'll tell you what I got: your wife's pussy on my breath."  "Nobody has ever talked to me like that before."  "That's because everybody's mouth is usually filled with your wife's box."  "You're hired."  There is a montage of John and Ted celebrating.  A father Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) and his son Robert (Aedin Mincks in kind of a hat-tip to Francis Buxton in Pee Wee's Big Adventure) approach the two.  Donny is a fan and offers to buy Ted, but they decline.  At one point Robert says, "Stand up straight when you're talking to me," prompting John to respond, "Why the fuck would he say that?"  Ted moves into his new apartment and Lori thanks John for being an understanding boyfriend.  

At the grocery store the next day, Ted goes through the motions of working the checkout, "Please come again, we have a lot more groceries."  He hits on cashier Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth), which includes him fellating a candy bar and then squirting moisturizer on his face.  "Okay, so that's where we draw the line."  Ted calls John, whose ringtone is now set to the Knight Rider theme.  John lies to go hang out with Ted and watch behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast from Cheers.  Ted Danson: "Woody Harrelson, smallest dick ..."  Ted (the bear) explains his choice of weed.  "It's called Mind Drain, it's actually pretty mellow.  He only had three other batches: Gorilla Panic; They're Coming, They're Coming; and something called This Is Permanent."  At the super market, it's busy and the lines are, to quote a phrase I used with my friend when we were cashiers, "beyond bulk."  (the bulk section was in the middle of our store).  Ted is having sex with Tami-Lynn in the stock room ("Stick your finger on the roof of my tag").  Nonplussed by Frank catching them in the act, Ted says, "I fucked her with a parsnip last week and I sold the parsnip to a family with four small children."  That night, in the alley, he's approached again by Donny, but ends up walking off with Tami-Lynn.  They have a dinner date with John and Lori, where she first accidentally gets Ted into hot water and then has an argument with Tami-Lynn.  "I'm always interested in meeting the lady who can snatch him up."  "Did you just call me a whore? ... You just worry about your own snatch, how about that, honey?"  After Tami-Lynn informs everyone that she has given birth, Ted walks off with her asking, "I never knew you had a baby, is it a alive?"  Lori calls John out on lying to his work the other day.  He convinces her that he will change, then farts and disrupts a business meeting nearby with his foul odor.  

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At Rex's work party, he takes John on a tour of his house.  John gets a call from Ted that Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) is at his apartment and, in a rather unbelievable moment, he asks Rex to cover for him.  John ends up getting drunk and doing lines of coke through a montage that takes on a very Flash Gordon-esque theme.  Ted sings Hootie & the Blowfish "Only Wanna Be With You" karaoke, does the knife trick where he ends up stabbing the guy by mistake, and draws Garfield on the topless body of a woman using her breasts as the cartoon cat's eyes.  Jones ends up punching a hole in the adjoining apartment summoning its irate occupant (Robert Wu), who Jones decides is Flash's arch rival The Emperor Ming.  Meanwhile, Ted fights with the neighbor's pet duck James Franco.  John's coworker is there with his new boyfriend Ryan Reynolds.  Lori breaks up with Ted and there is another montage, which includes her watching a Bridget Jones movie.  Rex finally convinces Lori to go out on a date.  Ted busts in on John, who is reading an edition of Tin-Tin in a hotel room to inform him, which results in a violent brawl.  It ends with Ted spanking John's bare ass with an antennae and then a television landing on him.  "My dick is squished by the TV."  

Rex takes Lori to the Hat Shell to listen to Norah Jones, who Ted just so happens to be friends with.  He has convinced her to allow John onstage to sing the theme to Octopussy.  It doesn't go well for him, but Lori does decide to leave separately after a disagreement with Rex.  Holding a far in through the whole date, Rex flatulates and says, relieved, "Finally."  Ted successfully pleads with Lori to give John one more chance.  Donny bear-naps Ted and takes him to his home, where there are pictures of Ted plastered across the wall.  Donny leaves Ted alone in the kid's room with Robert.  Robert tears his ear off and Ted convinces him to play Hide and Seek.  Ted escapes downstairs, where Donny is drinking beer while dancing to a music video of Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now."  Ted staples his ear to his head and calls John, who still has Donny's address from when they first met him at the park.  Donny grabs Ted and Robert and John and Lori go after them.  A chase ensues, which includes Ted breaking out Donny's car, jumping onto the hood of Lori's, and then her having to slam on her brakes sending Ted back into Donny's vehicle.  The chase continues to Donny climbing after Ted up a floodlight tower in Fenway Park.  Donny throws him off resulting in Ted ripping in two ("I look like the robot from Aliens") and stuffing flies everywhere.  John and Lori grab every last piece of Ted and try to bring him back to life back at Lori's Frankenstein style.  That night, Lori makes a wish for Ted to live again, which he does.  John and Lori eventually get married, where Ryan Reynolds is in attendance along with Tom Skerritt.  The narrator gives an account to what happened to all of the other principal characters through photo montage, including Rex dying of Lou Gehrig disease and Robert growing up to become Taylor Lautner.  

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