- Network: Apple TV+
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 29, 2024
Critic Reviews
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Martin’s graceful aging and ability to appreciate life more may be less of a yowza story than the meteoric rise that preceded it, but Now still has enough raw material to detail a hell of a second and third act. What we get instead, however, feels remarkably superficial.
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“Then” and “Now” combine to give a fairly thorough look at Martin’s life. Yet various co-stars Martin’s worked with through the years sound the same theme: they don’t really know him, not well. I’m not sure by the end of “Steve!” viewers do, either. But for Martin fans, it’s a fascinating attempt to try.
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What deeper access we’re given into the inner life of Steve Martin is debatable – his egg-poaching rituals are a pleasant touch, in a second (warmer) half that hunts for little but pleasant touches. Hanging out with him as he spitballs material, and makes Jerry Seinfeld inexplicably guffaw, is what happens after breakfast. It may all be a little too much of an average thing.
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Together, the two films in STEVE! handle that task of image reconciliation in a way that sometimes validates Neville’s approach, but in their separateness comes the great frustration of this ambitious project. “Then” isn’t very good and “Now” feels mostly like a very sweet and generally appealing denouement and not a story in and of itself. So “Now” doesn’t work to its fullest without “Then,” and “Then” probably doesn’t work at all without “Now.”
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