How Did James Franco Anne Hathaway Do As Oscar Hosts?

Did Anne Hathaway & James Franco bomb hosting Sunday’s Oscars? Whoopi Goldberg sure thinks so!

On The View Monday, the four-time Academy Award host gave her critique of newbie hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway — aka “The Academy’s attempt at staying young and current…” — who have gotten some harsh reviews from critics over their handling of last night’s ceremony.

“You’ve got to get people who understand a live show. The first few minutes of that show is yours,” Whoopi explained during the show’s “Hot Topics” segment this morning. “You have to recognize two things. You have to recognize – like after Melissa Leo said that [F]-word – … when things happen like that you have to be able to come and lift the audience out of their shock and move the show forward. I felt like last night there was no one in charge.”

Goldberg would be glad to host the show again, but only if she was paired with fellow repeat host Billy Crystal.

“I understand what they were trying to do. There are enough young performers out there who could have filled in the gaps,” she continued. “I like James Franco a lot. I like Anne Hathaway a lot. But this is a show that, it’s on you to keep it going. It’s on you. You have to be able to surf in this show. And I didn’t think they surfed as much as they could have.”

Check out what the other reviewers are saying:

USA TODAY: “Young, yes. Hip? Ah, no.”

The Hollywood Reporter: “In what could go down as one of the worst Oscar telecasts in history, a bad and risky idea — letting two actors host — proved out in spectacularly unwatchable fashion on the biggest of all nights for the film world.”

The New York Times: “At times, the prolonged effort to pander to younger viewers was downright painful. … A little like the attempt to graft Generation Y technology to old-fangled Hollywood panache, their stage personas clashed: Mr. Cooler-Than-Thou and Miss Eager-to-Please never really synched.”

The Washington Post: “Turns out hosting Oscars is when the dude decides to take a rest. The only required trick for Franco and Hathaway was to manage to not look like they were doing one of those flirty commercials for a phone plan. (He’s so laid back! She’s so hyper! And now they get unlimited 4G downloads and texting! etc.)”

The Los Angeles Times: “Overall, the evening had an oddly business-like feel, a mind-numbing evenness that was exacerbated by the relentless predictability of the winners, and the fact that none of the acting winners were played off no matter how long their ‘thank-yous’ went.”