Culture

Rating: B-

This is really the sort of movie that could have gone straight to DVD and had exactly the same impact as it did in the cinema. Seth MacFarlane’s second feature film is nowhere near as funny or memorable as Ted. MacFarlane plays the lead role of Albert Stark, a nerdy sheep farmer with few friends and a contemporary mentality, living in the old west. He inadvertently gets caught up in some nasty business with the woman he falls in love with (Charlize Theron) and her a-hole husband (Liam Neeson), who happens to be the most bad-ass outlaw of the time. You know, that old chestnut. This loose plot lays the groundwork for a number of below-average, Family Guy-esque jokes that you will probably forget an hour after the movie ends.

As a leading man, Seth MacFarlane does not cut the cheese. He’s awkward to watch, he isn’t that great an actor, and his only strong point is delivering self-aware jokes around intentionally less aware characters. Fortunately, he is saved from a failure of a movie with funny and interesting performances from Giovanni Ribisi, Charlize Theron and Liam Neeson. Even Sarah Silverman was more fun to watch than MacFarlane.

The film’s musical score is possibly my favourite thing about the movie. It’s got a light, bouncy, nostalgic tone that takes me back to the western films of yesteryear, which is weird, because this movie completely misses the mark in every other aspect of a great western.

There were a small number of cameo appearances from characters of other films, and actors that MacFarlane is friends with, and who doesn’t love a great cameo? This is not a terrible movie, but it’s not a great one. Hopefully MacFarlane uses this as a learning experience and Ted 2 will be a return to form.