Saturday Night

The film has good — or at least flattering — intentions. That may be the problem. It is also, to an almost eerie degree, not funny.

What we get are a few paltry sketches that land flatly but are buttressed by clunky shots of the studio crew in hysterics. The forced convulsions only make the gags seem less funny and certainly incapable of producing a seismic cultural disturbance.

The film’s spirit of barely controlled anarchy brings an edge-of-the-seat tension to proceedings, and its restless energy is infectious... But for all the talk of gamechanging comedy genius, Saturday Night ultimately plays it rather safe.

The founding of a comedy institution shot as a madcap thriller, Saturday Night glides over the surface rather than drilling deep, but it’s largely a hell of a fun 109 minutes.

I would gladly watch a documentary about the first night of SNL, but I'm not sure that as a drama this works because for the people who know, they'll go 'yeah, that's not right' and for the people who don't know, they'll go 'sorry, I'm interested, why?'

Even the superest superfan of the legendary US TV comedy show Saturday Night Live is going to struggle with the unbearable self-indulgence and self-adoration of this exhausting film from director and co-writer Jason Reitman.

...if Saturday Night makes one thing clear, it's that art—when it's truly art—is also built with fear, with disorder, and with an...intuition of unwittingly making history. [Full review in Spanish]

There a lot of plot holes in this story but it delivered enough fan service that made it an enjoyable watch.

I wanted to enjoy this movie but it ultimately let me down as a fan of SNL as it didn't give me anything more than some solid casting and cinematography. This felt contrived and oddly paced at times.

For boomers who grew up on SNL it’s a cultural Where’s Waldo? But even for them it quickly wears out its welcome. The film is populated not with characters but with caricatures.