It was double the fun for Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin at Sunday night’s 82nd Annual Oscars — as the two stars shared hosting duties throughout the more than three-hour-long ceremony.
“I think it went great!” Baldwin told UsMagazine.com at the Governor’s Ball in Hollywood after the Oscars. “I think it went really well. We decided it wasn’t about Steve and me, it’s about the nominees and the presenters. You don’t need to see us!”
Critics, however, may have wanted to see more of the two hosts.
The New York Post‘s Linda Stasi wrote that “the two seriously funny guys got seriously funny,” adding that “having all the Best Actor nominees on stage at once was great because it gave the hosts a way to start riffing on them all as they sat down.”
Variety added that the hosts’ opening “felt suited to a Vegas nightclub — and not necessarily in a bad way.” Variety writer Brian Lowry’s favorite part? “The duo simply singled out and riffed upon stars in the audience, from ‘That damn Helen Mirren’ (‘Dame,’ Baldwin corrected) to Zac Efron and Taylor Lautner, who were warned, ‘Take a look at us, guys: This is you in five years.'”
And although The Hollywood Reporter complained that the telecast was “still the same old Oscars” and that the hosts suffered from some “hit-and-miss jokes,” writer Andrew Wallenstein warmed to Martin and Baldwin. “Their chemistry crackled a bit more as the night progressed. Neither can claim a particularly memorable performance, but Martin’s final words might have been his funniest: ‘The show is so long that ‘Avatar’ now takes place in the past.'”
USA Today writer Robert Bianco also thought having both hosts “just joke their way around the room” was a good idea. “Like much (though not all) of what Martin and Baldwin did in their periodic appearances, the routine was agreeably amusing in a friends-joshing-friends kind of way, though considering the ages of the hosts and their friends, it probably struck some of the younger members of the audience as old-fashioned.”
