6.5/10. Russell Crowe is a pretty solid comedic actor! Whoda thunkit? I have to admit that I' m not even that big a fan of him as a dramatic actor. I tend to think he has a much more limited range than he's credited with, and yet here he really let loose in the sketches and showed a diverse set of humorous characters that would make me pleased to see him get a return gig at SNL. Color me surprised.
To that end, the two best sketches of the night featured Crowe going all out when it came to weird characters. His holographic Henry VIII, who was obsessed with having a woman bear him a son, certainly got a little lewd at times, but the sketch it gave nearly every member of the cast a chance to get a good line or moment in, and Crowe himself really committed to the silly desperation of the long dead king to, as Homer Simpson put it, "sire a dude." Similarly, his cunnilingus-obsessed German professor-type in the Dating Game sketch had such a hilarious specificity to him, from the sort of halting speech patterns to the laugh-worthy enunciation of every word whether it was technical anatomy or common slang. It shared some DNA with a similar sketch from the recent Jim Carrey episode, but Crowe made it his own.
The rest of the show had its ups and downs, but was generally mildly entertaining at worst. You can pretty much just give Kate McKinnon five minutes as Hillary anywhere on the show and she's wring the laughs out of the moment. Her take on Hillary playing up her New Yorker-ness was a hoot. And I'm not the biggest fan of Leslie Jones, but the ninja sketch played to the physicality she brings to every role she plays and it worked with the premise of the sketch.
The least successful sketches were the Al Sharpton one--I'm all for celebrities crashing their own parodies, but he wasn't even the slightest bit self-deprecating which knocked it down a lot--and the Good Neighbor guys' pre-taped Chuck-E-Cheese parody, which spent way too long waiting for something funny to just happen. Then again, their pre-taped bits very rarely do it for me, so it may just be not to my taste.
It also wasn't the strongest Weekend Update in recent memory. The jokes at the desk were good enough, but seemed a little easier and less clever than usual, though Che's bit about the subway gave me a few chuckles. Kate McKinnon's Deenie character didn't work for me the first time, and while McKinnon can make some of these bits work through sheer force of will, this one didn't do much for me. The same goes for Kyle Mooney's hack comedian character. I get that he's going for a Neil Hamburger vibe here, but it has the wrong energy for Update, and it's just never really taken off.
The rest of the episode was okay. Crowe's monologue about turning his dramas into comedies was a pretty mild attempt at poking fun at himself, but it worked well enough, and his turn as an uncle's creepy friend in the Survivor bit was the best thing in a pretty underwritten sketch. Frankly, a lot of the sketches were one-note tonight, even the good ones. That definitely goes for the Preperation H ad (which didn't have the right balance of playing it straight vs. comedy) and the Mike O'Brien as Oprah sketch, which wasn't as funny as his Jay-Z sketch that had basically the same premise.
But hey, it was a nice enough way to spend an hour! Plus, there's a fine line between folk and country, but Margo Price walks it well and her soulful songs about booze and lost love were a nice treat from an artist I wasn't familiar with. That, plus a very game and surprisingly adept hope is enough to earn a tentative thumbs up from yours truly.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-04-11T00:30:02Z
6.5/10. Russell Crowe is a pretty solid comedic actor! Whoda thunkit? I have to admit that I' m not even that big a fan of him as a dramatic actor. I tend to think he has a much more limited range than he's credited with, and yet here he really let loose in the sketches and showed a diverse set of humorous characters that would make me pleased to see him get a return gig at SNL. Color me surprised.
To that end, the two best sketches of the night featured Crowe going all out when it came to weird characters. His holographic Henry VIII, who was obsessed with having a woman bear him a son, certainly got a little lewd at times, but the sketch it gave nearly every member of the cast a chance to get a good line or moment in, and Crowe himself really committed to the silly desperation of the long dead king to, as Homer Simpson put it, "sire a dude." Similarly, his cunnilingus-obsessed German professor-type in the Dating Game sketch had such a hilarious specificity to him, from the sort of halting speech patterns to the laugh-worthy enunciation of every word whether it was technical anatomy or common slang. It shared some DNA with a similar sketch from the recent Jim Carrey episode, but Crowe made it his own.
The rest of the show had its ups and downs, but was generally mildly entertaining at worst. You can pretty much just give Kate McKinnon five minutes as Hillary anywhere on the show and she's wring the laughs out of the moment. Her take on Hillary playing up her New Yorker-ness was a hoot. And I'm not the biggest fan of Leslie Jones, but the ninja sketch played to the physicality she brings to every role she plays and it worked with the premise of the sketch.
The least successful sketches were the Al Sharpton one--I'm all for celebrities crashing their own parodies, but he wasn't even the slightest bit self-deprecating which knocked it down a lot--and the Good Neighbor guys' pre-taped Chuck-E-Cheese parody, which spent way too long waiting for something funny to just happen. Then again, their pre-taped bits very rarely do it for me, so it may just be not to my taste.
It also wasn't the strongest Weekend Update in recent memory. The jokes at the desk were good enough, but seemed a little easier and less clever than usual, though Che's bit about the subway gave me a few chuckles. Kate McKinnon's Deenie character didn't work for me the first time, and while McKinnon can make some of these bits work through sheer force of will, this one didn't do much for me. The same goes for Kyle Mooney's hack comedian character. I get that he's going for a Neil Hamburger vibe here, but it has the wrong energy for Update, and it's just never really taken off.
The rest of the episode was okay. Crowe's monologue about turning his dramas into comedies was a pretty mild attempt at poking fun at himself, but it worked well enough, and his turn as an uncle's creepy friend in the Survivor bit was the best thing in a pretty underwritten sketch. Frankly, a lot of the sketches were one-note tonight, even the good ones. That definitely goes for the Preperation H ad (which didn't have the right balance of playing it straight vs. comedy) and the Mike O'Brien as Oprah sketch, which wasn't as funny as his Jay-Z sketch that had basically the same premise.
But hey, it was a nice enough way to spend an hour! Plus, there's a fine line between folk and country, but Margo Price walks it well and her soulful songs about booze and lost love were a nice treat from an artist I wasn't familiar with. That, plus a very game and surprisingly adept hope is enough to earn a tentative thumbs up from yours truly.