The acting match-up in Broken City feels like an old school  heavyweight title fight from back in the day when these things really  meant something.  

Seth MacFarlane's new movie Ted, a live action hybrid, finds him channeling just one character, an animated teddy bear brought to life by the wish of a young boy named John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg stands in as the adult body double) who longs for a best friend, a buddy to hang onto during the thunderous storms of life or toke up and watch Flash Gordon with during all of those in-between moments.  

As a story about a scrappy, working-class nobody who gets an unexpected shot at the title, David O. Russell's 'The Fighter' was bound to earn comparisons to 'Rocky.' And the comparisons are justified — not just because of its plot but also because of its concern for quirky characters and a sense of place. Grade: B-plus.   

Back in 2006 at the media weekend for 'Stranger Than Fiction,' Ferrell seemed poised for a breakout of sorts, a stretch outside the comic mold that had earned him a legion of fans eager to cast him as "the next Adam Sandler," which is a rather narrow tag when you consider that those guys have very little in common in terms of comic stylings and the fact that they both got breaks on SNL. During interviews for 'Fiction,' seemed so driven to distance himself from his wild and crazy persona that he completely locked the funny guy in the hole.  

Desk jockey detectives Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) stumble onto the heroic forefront in Adam McKay's latest laughfest collaboration ('Anchorman,' 'Step Brothers') with Ferrell. This is more than a straight-ahead send-up of the "buddy cop" convention, as Ferrell and Wahlberg burrow past the laughs until something almost recognizable and real emerges. Grade: B.