You already have an opinion of Seth MacFarlane's humor, and I'd follow your gut on that before plopping down your money on this.

I would still say I like Family Guy. People say "It got so bad after it came back", and I say "Have you tried watching the first 2 seasons lately?". I think more than anything his formula became stale or frustrating for most people, and further watered down by having to spread it across 3 shows. He's overexposed with lesser versions of what he's capable of. So along comes Ted. It's still easy, lowbrow, wrapped up in references, asides, and an odd underlying sense of crooner-era class, with a bit of genuine cleverness mixed in. But it works for me.

I always felt that MacFarlane was a good voice performer, on his own show, in Hellboy II, just in general. Here he's comfortably playing a less nasal Peter Griffin. Wahlberg is in his best mode, the goofball mode, so fans of his who don't care for MacFarlane might still get something out of this for that reason alone. Kunis, from sheer force of will and talent, wrestles every chance she can get for humor and sympathy out of a script that otherwise does her no favors.

Because this is just You Me and Dupree taken to it's logical extreme, with an actual childhood toy representing the douchey best friend. It milks everything it can out of the concept and in the end Ted is thus only as good as how often you laughed. I laughed quite a bit. The performance, the line readings, timing, surprises. Laugh now, apologize for it later. Sort of like The Hangover without a better concept pulling you along. I'd go into certain jokes and why they worked for me, but there's no point. Very few if any of these jokes merit deconstruction or work if they are explained. There is not a passionate debate about Ted worth having. The only bait I'll throw out there is this.

Hey there animation rivals... Seth MacFarlane is a better live-action director than Trey Parker.