Ted (15)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis

For a one-joke movie, Ted has made a mighty splash, the joke being that one half of a buddy friendship is a toy bear that swears, smokes dope and ogles women.

The other half is a 35-year-old underachiever named John (Mark Wahlberg) who has a girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis) of great sweetness and tolerance. She has to be, given that John and Ted still behave like a couple of teenage stoners. The film is written and directed by Seth MacFarlane, who's aiming to re-create his TV successes with Family Guy and American Dad!. Unfortunately, his big-screen debut just doesn't work: the jokes are a farrago of risqué sexual references and pop-culture riffs, and though they try they're not really offensive – just inane, and boring. Ted is a profane, lecherous oaf, more boorish than bearish, and his abduction by a violent weirdo (Giovanni Ribisi) would be a piss-poor excuse for a plot even if we cared for the bear. Stuffing's too good for him. Wahlberg is game as the stooge, but neither of them is a patch on Mr Derek and Basil Brush.