Reno (December 24, 2015)

> The return wasn't as exciting as the previous one. No surprise why this film failed to excite me, but a few people thinks its a passable sequel. The original movie was atypical, so the success followed it. In my perspective better that should have left as a one-off movie. But as a low budget product, they knew it was going grab back twice, thrice they spent because of the star value and indeed the first film's influence. There is no story, simply based on the usual Hollywood road adventure like the flicks 'Fanboys', 'Dumb and Dumber To', 'Not Suitable for Children' et cetera, except the character Ted which makes this theme a special. A couple of good jokes and that's it, the rest were ineffective, sometime keep repeating the same ones. The 2 hours in a too plain concept, is way too long to sit and watch/focus. The cameos were weak, or maybe worthless/meaningless, especially Liam Neeson's. The best things were the production quality, acting and like I mentioned before, the character Ted. For the one time watch, I think kind of manageable, but definitely not suitable for repeat viewing or to recommend it to the others. But overall, a little disappointed with the outcome. They have got one more chance to end this franchise on a high note as a decent trilogy if the next film gets a better storyline. 6/10

The Movie Diorama (January 17, 2020)

Ted 2 packs more unhumorous stuffing within its formulaic synthetic fur. MacFarlane is a talented comedian, I’m sure of it. His profusely crude humour captivating millions with his legendary ‘Family Guy’ TV show. Even ‘Ted’ was tolerable to a certain degree, and that’s saying something. Yet here we are, with an inevitable sequel, that essentially felt like a glorified episode of the aforementioned animation. It’s cutaway structure for unrelated gags. Relentless wave of pointless cameos. Ted becoming Peter Griffin. Close your eyes, let the voices infiltrate your senses and you’ll soon realise it’s just ‘Family Guy’, just less funny. Ted now married and struggling to maintain his relationship, has his rights taken away when he is no longer viewed as person but property instead. A particularly strong aspect to this comedy that more or less is the power source of its story, raising a civil rights lesson in ethics and morality. It was so *interesting* that Morgan Freeman himself got involved and slam dunked the jury with his God-like soothing voice. And despite Seyfried actually picking up the script’s remnants and transforming the scraps into a functional film, it’s utterly forgettable. So much so, that once Wahlberg becomes drowned in rejected semen samples (literally swimming with the sperm...), I experienced a moment of déjà vu (ironically, so did Ted). Surprisingly, I had seen the first half before. Yet it took me a decent forty minutes to encounter this epiphany, that’s how unmemorable this comedy truly is. It exercises all of the same plot points from its predecessor, the inclusion of the mentally unhinged Donny and the friendly break-up between the leads cement this sentiment, and rarely explored new avenues. Sure the friendly chemistry remained intact, but only one or two lines made me frustratingly chuckle, mostly due to Warburton’s comedic execution (urgh, that voice...). Besides that, there’s nothing here. Same old MacFarlane profanity. Worth a squeeze if you enjoyed the first film, but exhausts its preset lines of dialogue extremely rapidly. “I love you”? Eh, please don’t.