In this de facto, if far from de jure, latest iteration of the Ted franchise, Mark Wahlberg once again forms a strange, almost inexplicable bond with a supernatural creature who tests him in a number of painful, problematic ways. However – surprise! – instead of a stuffed teddy bear that’s come to life, this time the agent of chaos is God himself, that omnipresent, omniscient, all-powerful scamp. God first makes the life of Wahlberg’s Stuart Long hard by taking away his little brother via a sudden death when they are little kids, and then giving him a nature that gets him into trouble throughout his life, keeping him from finding a vocation until he finally Finds a Vocation, ie the desire to become a priest.
On the plus side, Stu at least has a number of nice people rooting for him and helping him out, including his feisty mom Kathleen (Jacki Weaver). There’s also a saintly girlfriend named Carmen (Teresa Ruiz) who first leads him to the church, and variously supportive fellow seminary students (Aaron Moten and Cody Fern) who, like most of the supporting cast, deserve canonisation for offering very strong performances as unexpectedly well defined characters. And I am loth to admit this but that also goes for Mel Gibson; if you can separate the dancer from dance, he is an actor capable of bringing a face like a long stretch of ravaged road and a credible impression of pain to the role of Stu’s alcoholic dad Billy. Still, Gibson’s connections to a particularly retrograde, Opus Dei-adjacent branch of the Catholic church represents a problem for a movie that wants us to celebrate the faith’s ability to be more inclusive and accepting of renegades. Is this really what Jesus would have wanted?
