John Bennett, a man whose childhood wish of bringing his teddy bear to life came true, now must decide between keeping the relationship with the bear or his girlfriend, Lori.
Two years after the bachelor party in Las Vegas, Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug jet to Thailand for Stu's wedding. Stu's plan for a subdued pre-wedding brunch, however, goes seriously awry.
Director:
Todd Phillips
Stars:
Bradley Cooper,
Zach Galifianakis,
Ed Helms
After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college.
Three buddies wake up from a bachelor party in Las Vegas, with no memory of the previous night and the bachelor missing. They make their way around the city in order to find their friend before his wedding.
Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.
Months after John's divorce, Ted and Tami-Lynn's marriage seems on the same road. To patch things up, Ted and Tami-Lynn plan to have a child with John's help, but their failed efforts backfire disastrously. Namely, Ted is declared property by the government and he loses all his civil rights. Now, Ted must fight a seemingly hopeless legal battle with an inexperienced young lawyer to regain his rightful legal status. Unfortunately, between Ted's drunken idiocies and sinister forces interested in this situation to exploit him, Ted's quest has all the odds against him. Written by
Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
The scene where Sam plays the guitar while singing in the country side is similar to the film The Sound of Music where Maria does the same thing to the van Trapp children. The Sound of Music is Seth MacFarlane's all time favorite movie. In fact Seth loved the film so much Family Guy played cutaway gags based on the film. See more »
Goofs
When Ted, and his wife have their fight at the 'first year' mark he is seated at the kitchen table, and she is cooking at the stove. As they argue back, and forth, the beer bottles on the table to the right of Ted keep moving on the table. At one time the bottles label(s) will be turned to the camera, and the next time away from the camera. This occurs about six times; although the camera never shows him drinking from them at any time. See more »
Quotes
Ted:
I think it's time to play the Beetlejuice card.
John:
What?
Ted:
I mean saying his name three times so he appears.
John:
Are you fucking crazy, we don't want that guy running around here!
Ted:
No it's be fine, he'll be on our side! Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetle...
John:
Hey, you are messing with powers you do not understand alright! Cut the shit!
See more »
Crazy Credits
Like the first movie, the start of the movie has the Universal 'planet earth' signature sequence appear and begin the narration. As the narration continues, the camera zooms in to the logo, "Google Earth Style" eventually centering on the action outside of the church of Ted and Tami-Lynn's wedding. See more »
In 2012 when Seth Macfarlane's directorial debut was released, I, like many other people enjoyed it a lot. It was a basic film about a man and his senile teddy bear who would just smoke weed, swear a lot and hang out. That premise was enough to get us on board and it worked for a one off feature film. After the box office success it received a sequel was inevitable.. but how could a film with such a premise possibly do anything more to become a franchise? Well not only does Ted 2 ramp up the laughs, it also gives us a surprisingly strong plot and pulls it off well.
The basic premise is that Ted has married Tammi-Lynn from the first film, whereas John has divorced Lori. Following some marital problems, Ted decides to save his marriage with a baby, but in order to do this he has to prove that he is a person and not just property in the eyes of the law. Enter Sam L. Jackson (Amanda Seyfried) and yes as you would expect there are many references to the Hollywood star. I knew Mila Kunis was not coming back for this film and after her performance in the lacklustre 'A million ways to die in the West' i was not expecting Seyfried to be a good replacement, but she fits in with the cast very well. Just like the first film the chemistry between John (Mark Wahlberg) and Ted (Seth Macfarlane) is what makes the comedy work so well, you really believe you are watching two real life friends hang out, rather than Mark Wahlberg and a CGI teddy bear. The plot wasn't what made the first so enjoyable, it was their bond. Amanda Seyfried fits in with these two so well and as a trio they really mesh well together. She brings a lot of laughs to the table and I actually liked her character more than Mila Kunis'.
Whilst the plot is very good and holds up, the third act takes a bit of a plunge and almost copies the last act of the first film completely. Giovanni Risbi reprises his role as Donny and does exactly what he did originally, just for a slightly different reason. The film could have done without this to focus more on the human elements, even though it was hilarious to see Ninja turtle Raphael dance to 'I think we're alone now'. It almost felt like filler to make a longer movie. The small road trip segment to me was great, we got spoofs of both Planes, Trains and Automobiles and a great Jurassic Park spoof in the space of a couple of minutes. In fact the pop culture references from Rocky to Flash Gordon (Sam J Jones returns) were pretty great. I also loved the courtroom scenes, and even Morgan Freeman in an extended cameo provided us with a very good look at what human rights are all about.
What i wanted from this film was to laugh, which i did, a lot more than i expected to as well which is a bonus. Look out for a hysterical cameo from Liam Neeson. The 'is Ted a human' storyline felt like a bold and wonderful step forward and brings up way more questions about human rights than any Seth Macfarlane production should.. but not in a bad way at all. It focuses a lot less on the drugs and crude jokes, even though they are very much still there! But the way it was executed was just great. I wish the third act had stuck with it, but by the end if you are a fan of Seth Macfarlane's work such as Family Guy you will come out satisfied after plenty of laughs and a surprising amount of heart. Will we get a Ted 3? Most likely, but if it keeps up what Ted 2 did right then i just might be okay with that.
10 of 17 people found this review helpful.
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In 2012 when Seth Macfarlane's directorial debut was released, I, like many other people enjoyed it a lot. It was a basic film about a man and his senile teddy bear who would just smoke weed, swear a lot and hang out. That premise was enough to get us on board and it worked for a one off feature film. After the box office success it received a sequel was inevitable.. but how could a film with such a premise possibly do anything more to become a franchise? Well not only does Ted 2 ramp up the laughs, it also gives us a surprisingly strong plot and pulls it off well.
The basic premise is that Ted has married Tammi-Lynn from the first film, whereas John has divorced Lori. Following some marital problems, Ted decides to save his marriage with a baby, but in order to do this he has to prove that he is a person and not just property in the eyes of the law. Enter Sam L. Jackson (Amanda Seyfried) and yes as you would expect there are many references to the Hollywood star. I knew Mila Kunis was not coming back for this film and after her performance in the lacklustre 'A million ways to die in the West' i was not expecting Seyfried to be a good replacement, but she fits in with the cast very well. Just like the first film the chemistry between John (Mark Wahlberg) and Ted (Seth Macfarlane) is what makes the comedy work so well, you really believe you are watching two real life friends hang out, rather than Mark Wahlberg and a CGI teddy bear. The plot wasn't what made the first so enjoyable, it was their bond. Amanda Seyfried fits in with these two so well and as a trio they really mesh well together. She brings a lot of laughs to the table and I actually liked her character more than Mila Kunis'.
Whilst the plot is very good and holds up, the third act takes a bit of a plunge and almost copies the last act of the first film completely. Giovanni Risbi reprises his role as Donny and does exactly what he did originally, just for a slightly different reason. The film could have done without this to focus more on the human elements, even though it was hilarious to see Ninja turtle Raphael dance to 'I think we're alone now'. It almost felt like filler to make a longer movie. The small road trip segment to me was great, we got spoofs of both Planes, Trains and Automobiles and a great Jurassic Park spoof in the space of a couple of minutes. In fact the pop culture references from Rocky to Flash Gordon (Sam J Jones returns) were pretty great. I also loved the courtroom scenes, and even Morgan Freeman in an extended cameo provided us with a very good look at what human rights are all about.
What i wanted from this film was to laugh, which i did, a lot more than i expected to as well which is a bonus. Look out for a hysterical cameo from Liam Neeson. The 'is Ted a human' storyline felt like a bold and wonderful step forward and brings up way more questions about human rights than any Seth Macfarlane production should.. but not in a bad way at all. It focuses a lot less on the drugs and crude jokes, even though they are very much still there! But the way it was executed was just great. I wish the third act had stuck with it, but by the end if you are a fan of Seth Macfarlane's work such as Family Guy you will come out satisfied after plenty of laughs and a surprising amount of heart. Will we get a Ted 3? Most likely, but if it keeps up what Ted 2 did right then i just might be okay with that.