Ted 2

Once you get past all the sophomoric antics and gratuitous vulgarity, there are some heartfelt questions at the heart of Ted 2, in which the titular anthropomorphic stuffed bear tries to become part of a human family.

But the film’s uneven execution raises another relevant question: Why has director Seth MacFarlane and his collaborators been unable to translate their freewheeling sense of humor from their wildly successful animated television shows to the big screen?

At any rate, this sequel to the comedy about the bond between a grown man and his childhood teddy bear picks up with Ted (voiced by MacFarlane) trying to save his relationship with his human wife (Jessica Barth) by arranging with his “thunder buddy” John (Mark Wahlberg) to find a sperm donor so they can have a child.

That plan backfires, however, and winds up getting Ted into legal trouble when the couple is forced to adopt, and the court rules that because he’s technically property, he can’t be a parent. So John and Ted hire a young attorney (Amanda Seyfried) to fight the system, except that she seems more interested in John than the case.

The film features some scattered big laughs (such as a video of bears humping providing the pornographic pleasures during Ted’s bachelor party) and a handful of amusing cameos including Jay Leno, Tom Brady, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson (whose hilarious exchange with Ted at the grocery store involves a literal interpretation of a breakfast cereal slogan).

The screenplay tries to poke fun at cable news and the legal system by combining crude gags with a more mature examination of social issues, but doesn’t have the skill to pull it off. The potentially provocative discussion of civil rights and legal red tape threatening to tear a family apart is topical but it doesn’t generate much sympathy, and equating Ted’s struggle with that of “the homos,” as he puts it, seems ill-conceived.

Along the way, there are some low-brow chuckles along with a handful of hilarious cutaways and non sequiturs that play to MacFarlane’s strengths. But even for those who enjoyed the first film, the novelty has worn off by now.

The actors have fun with the material, although when character both human and bear are such bumbling idiots for the most part (obsessed with weed and genitalia), they’re certainly not soft and cuddly.

Rated R, 115 minutes.