The foulmouthed exploits of a talking bear brought to life by a child’s wish was a high concept comedy that felt fresh, three years ago. The massive success of Ted automatically guaranteed a sequel and A Million Ways To Die In The West and Oscar Hosting duties later; Ted 2 washed up cinema. Jettisoning all the likeable qualities about the first movie (plus Mila Kunis), Ted to ups the bro-factor and serves up a limp follow-up that fails to recapture the warmth of the original.

Ted 2 isn’t without some laughs, Liam Neeson’s cameo as a customer wanting to buy a box of children’s breakfast cereal and questions Ted of the legality of his purchase, bloody brilliant. Peter Warburton showing up at Comic-Con dressed as The Tic is briefly funny, and then he goes out of his way to beat up geeks for no reason. Amusing the first time, unnecessarily mean-spirited the sixth.

Ted had all the hallmarks of Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy all over it, this was to be expected, but he did it in a subtle way. For Ted 2, he leans fully into it, and we get random cutaways, the reuse of a Family Guy sperm bank gag and John acts even more like Peter Griffin. Gone is the likeable mix of stoner-comedy with a great big heart, all that heart is absent here, and it has been replaced with a dark current that runs throughout. I’m still a fan of Family Guy and a bigger fan of American Dad (it’s a better show Y’all), but Ted 2 is a poor sequel by all accounts, and even MacFarlane’s hardcore fans will struggle to find the funny.

The extended edition offers a couple of extra minutes of largely pointless new scenes, but save your money and buy American Dad instead. The thunder buddies are back, but lightening doesn’t strike twice in this lacklustre sequel that forgets to bring the warmth of the original.