Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

"Dr. Manning, suck my ectoplasmic schwanztucker!"

It’s unusual to see the combination of auteur director and a Hollywood comic book blockbuster, but the first Hellboy film gave us that with Guillermo Del Toro. Now, though, we have a sequel, without anything like the need for exposition, and it feels as though Del Toro has been released by the success of the previous film from the studio’s constraints and can truly put his stamp on the film.

This is clear from the start, with a John Hurt-narrated flashback from what looks rather like Middle Earth is done in the style of a Tool video, and is the first of the film’s countless visual triumphs, ranging from “tooth fairies” to a psychopathic beanstalk. All this is sufficiently done with sufficient awesomeness that you barely notice the main baddie is played by... Luke Goss from Bros. Yes indeed.

It’s not all visual awesomeness, though; solid plotting, superb characterisation and splendid central performances from Ron Perlman and Selma Blair are also essential ingredients as, bizarrely, is the comedy German accent provided by none other than Seth MacFarlane. Similarly awesome is the psychogeography in which, beneath the surface of New York's boroughs, there lurk troll markets and other such things. This evokes Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, China Mieville and, indeed, points towards Doctor Who's Face the Raven but, more to the point, is awesome to see being handled by Del Toro.

There's a moral here; be brave, get a good director and let them do whatever the hell they want.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

"Our old school marm got her throat cut by a fast-moving tumbleweed."

Yes, this may be exactly what you expect from Seth MacFarlane, with his signature style humour, and pretty much Ted in the Wild West. But you say that like it's a bad thing.

This is great; a standard-ish Western plot gives the framework for MacFarlane to have fun and do what he does, including a prostitute who will do anything for her clients but won't have pre-marital sex with her boyfriend, plenty of observational humour and even a cameo from Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown, three years before Marty arrives in 1885.

The music, direction and style are done like a proper Western, which works brilliantly as a contrast to the humour, and MacFarlane himself succeeds magnificently as a leading man, even if he basically is Brian from Family Guy whenever he opens his mouth.

All this and we get a cameo from Ryan Reynolds too!

Ted 2 (2015)

"Piss off- I don't want to get any jizz on me..."

Ted 2 is much like Ted, which is no bad thing. And that is to say that it feels like an extended episode of Family Guy right up to the point of reusing a skit about donated sperm. But, again, this is no bad thing. Seth MacFarlane may not be quite in the very first rank of comedy film-makers, but he can certainly be relied upon to be very funny indeed.

This time the plot is about Ted's legal crusade to legally prove that he's a person while much weed is smoked by all, but this is just an excuse for the one liners that we know and love, and the stand-up style observational comedy that we expect from MacFarlane. The pop culture references abound again: Sam Jones is back, while Michael Dorn's character goes to the New York Comicon dressed as Worf...!

Also, Sam is cool: an idealistic and very intelligent lawyer, an attractive female character whom we can actually respect for her brains and her principles... and she smokes a lot of weed. It seems that young Americans do a lot of that these days. 

This is a film that will surprise no one who knows the slightest thing about Serh MacFarlane, and I for one have no problem with that. I'm hoping for another sequel.

Ted (2012)

“Come on, I do NOT sound that much like Peter Griffin!”

 

We’ve all seen Family Guy. We’ve all seen American Dad. Well, if we haven’t, we should have, but I digress, which is rather worrying as thus is only the second sentence. But we all know what to expect from a film by Seth MacFarlane- exactly the same sort of thing but with live action instead of cartoons and that. And that’s exactly what this film delivers, and rightly so. Anything else would be disappointing.

Yes, the plot may be a bit clichéd: a man in his thirties has to choose between his girlfriend (who represents responsibility and adulthood) and his best friend (who represents childhood, literally, in fact, as a bear!), but eventually gets to have his cake and eat it. It’s a cliché, and a rather simplistic one, which rather insultingly implies that all men are children and all women are boring. None of that really matters here, though. The plot is just something to hang the cool stuff from.

Ted himself is not only voiced by Macfarlane, but probably represents a side of him which we also see in the similarly voiced Peter Griffin. Other familiar elements are the involvement of Patrick Stewart and the many pop culture references. I’m pleased to see that Macfarlane loves Flash Gordon as much as I do. I’m also pleased to see that Ted has managed to achieve promotion in his chosen career in the same way I used myself! I’m amazed, though, to see such a massive bong. Ted knows how to party. It’s interesting, not for the first time in a recent Hollywood film, to see how liberal the United States is these days when it comes to cannabis. We Europeans have a lot to learn.

Mila Kunis is brilliant and sexy, while Mark Wahlberg carries the film with charisma. But neither of them can match the sheer awesomeness of the film’s two stars: the gorgeous, historic city of Boston, one of my favourite American cities, which looks stunning here, and Macfarlane himself, who is obviously a genius. This film is brilliant for the exact reasons that you would expect it to be. Giggity giggity!