Jobs

The first of what will surely be many biopics to come of one of the 20th century's greatest innovators, 'Jobs' only draw is being first out of the gate. Yes, if you haven't yet been acquainted with the tumultuous early years of the Apple founder, then this perfunctory retelling will probably be as good an introduction as any; but everyone else who is familiar with the story will be disappointed with this overly simplistic portrayal of a complex man whose ambition was both his greatest gift as well as his most significant stumbling block. Beginning in 2001 when he unveiled his masterpiece, the iPod, to rapturous applause, Stern and his first-time feature screenwriter Matt Whiteley rewind the clock thirty years ago to 1971 when Jobs was a student at Reed College, Portland. An LSD trip, a journey to India and a brief stint at Atari later, Jobs teams up with his buddy, self-taught engineering wiz Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad), to build Apple computers in the former's parents' Los Altos garage. Jobs had the inspired idea to combine a typewriter with a TV, and the Apple II was born - but not without the funding from entrepreneur and former Intel engineer Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney). To find a dramatic hook, Whiteley predictably focuses on the most pivotal turning point in Jobs' life, as Jobs' launch of the Macintosh computer in 1984 sparks off an internal feud with his CEO John Scully (Matthew Modine) and the rest of the Board (including J.K. Simmons' Arthur Rock) that leads to his ouster and the company's subsequent decline. Of course, Jobs makes a return to the flailing company in 1996 upon then-CEO Gil Amelio's (Kevin Dunn) request, returning Apple to its roots in the personal computer market and paving the way for its success today. Is there anything this dramatization adds to that true story which you cannot glean from any text-based account? Hardly; if anything, it merely puts a face to the disbelief, disappointment, indignation and gratification Jobs must have felt when he was kicked out of Apple and then presented with the golden opportunity to rebuild the company into the vision he had for it at the onset. The storytelling is pretty straightforward, covering the important events of his professional ups and downs but providing little details beyond what is already public knowledge. Admittedly, to expect more would probably be a tall order, since the man has passed away and the others who would be familiar with these past events did not participate in the making of this film - including the real-life Woz, who in fact has been a vocal critic of the movie. But more disappointingly, Stern completely glosses over Jobs' personal life and personality, both of which are essential to any self-respecting biopic - after all, how can any biography be complete without an insight into the person whose life story is being told? Whiteley's episodic script is utterly superficial in this regard - and we're not talking about Jobs' drive, determination or innovation. Instead, Jobs' crucial relationship with Wozniak is thinly sketched, not only because it omits how they met and their chemistry, but also because it barely explains why Woz quit Apple dissatisfied with the direction the company was heading and the person that Jobs had become. Other aspects of Jobs' character are given short shrift - for instance, we see Jobs dumping his pregnant girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan (Ahna O'Reilly) and refusing to recognise his newly born daughter as his own early on, but are given little explanation how and why he settles down and turns into a family man later. If the scripting is a part of the problem, then the acting is yet another. Chiefly, while bearing more than a passing resemblance to Jobs, Ashton Kutcher is not up to the part. To his credit, one can tell Kutcher has put in a lot of effort into the role, emulating his character's awkwardly hunched posture as well as to some degree his voice and gestures; unfortunately Kutcher always looks like he is playing the part, and never quite becoming the character he is supposed to portray. It is an affected performance, and Kutcher's limitations as a dramatic actor are all too apparent here. In fact, the supporting acts steal the show, especially Mulroney's solid turn as Jobs' ally turned adversary. Most of all, Stern's film rarely possesses the qualities that characterised Jobs - it isn't bold enough to offer a balanced, or critical even, perspective of the man (including his more unsavoury personal aspects), nor unique enough to provide a distinctive look at the early years of his storied career. What emerges is simply bland and uninspired filmmaking, which in the context of Jobs' illustrious and intricate life, is an unsatisfying tribute to a man who spent his time being exactly the opposite.

I've seen this film and the one starring Michael Fassbender, "Steve Jobs". The difference between the two is this - This film shows a great deal of Steve's' life, with a real accent on the mid to late 70s as Apple was being created. The Fassbender film only shows three specific scenes in Steve's life, but by the time the film is through, even though Fassbender does not even resemble Steve Jobs, you feel like you are looking right at him because of Fassbender's electrifying performance. In "Jobs" Kutcher may be made up to look and walk like Jobs, but I never feel like I am getting into the head of Steve Jobs.

What does this film do well? The first half of it captures the look and feel of early home computing in a totally realistic way - the kind of people who were involved, the way that they dressed, what early homemade personal computers in the 1970s looked like. What did they look like? It was like the first cars when they were called "horseless carriages" because that's what people AND the inventors understood as the old paradigm. The horse was being replaced with an engine and the rest of the car looked like carriages always had looked. So the earliest computers had switches and lights and sat in unattractive blue boxes that engineers thought were great, but the average person had no idea what to do with such a thing and didn't want one.

What did this film do poorly? I'd say Steve Wozniak is presented as a mere shadow of himself here. You never see the camaraderie or dynamic between himself and Jobs. The old Home Brew Club looked up to Wozniak, and when he presents the first "Apple" computer to them they just look bored and Woz looks scared.

Finally I come to Ashton Kutcher. Ashton Kutcher's problem is that he did one of his earliest roles so well and so long - that of mega screw up Kelso in the long running TV comedy "That 70's Show". He did it so well in fact that I ALWAYS see Kelso whenever I see Kutcher, no matter how well he is performing. In this film I kept waiting for his 70's Show girlfriend, alpha female attack dog Jackie, to come jumping out of a dark corner and start yelling at him and tell him what a screw up he is. Kutcher can't help this. I call it "Norman Bates Syndrome" - the same thing that happened to Anthony Perkins. No matter what role Anthony Perkins took after Psycho, no matter how well he did it, he was always Norman Bates. You just kept waiting for him to hit somebody over the head and start preparing the body to add to his collection of stuffed animals/people.

This is not a terrible film on Jobs. Nobody does a bad job, and it is interesting from a history of personal computing perspective. I'd say see this one for the history, and watch the Fassbender rendition in "Steve Jobs" to get a feel for the essence of the man, who will always remain somewhat of an enigma.

Ashton Kutcher isn't exactly the best actor but I don't think he was a bad choice for Steve Jobs. He literally looks like him unlike Michael Fassbender. Josh Gad was also a good choice for Steve Wozniak. I understand this film is known for its historical inaccuracies, but I was still able to watch this film regardless.

Let's see, well it was worth seeing for me; however, I wished I had waited till is came out on television -- Because it was really a "movie of the week"... do they still have those? To say this movie was weak on facts would imply they got it ALL wrong - Yes, they made some things up doing the "hollywood thing" but they didn't even attempt half the history so they couldn't have gotten it ALL wrong! Parts of his life missing were glaring!

They glossed over years -- Heck decades at points, concentrating on Apple more than Steve Jobs in my opinion... maybe a better name would have been "Apple & jobs - Some of the Years"!

Wait for the movie to hit your TV and know you will still be missing more than half the story!

Steve Jobs isn't a nice guy... he uses people like they are toilet paper... and he is a taker. It's a great set-up for a slammin' movie. Unfortunitely, this movie seems incomplete and without heart. More accurately, most of the scenes seem incomplete, disjointed and pointless. It all adds up to nothing.

Problem #1) You don't care for Jobs and you leave the theater not knowing Jobs. There are few emotional moments in the movie - except when you want to spit on him. Fire this person unnecessarily; deny that loyal employee well-earned benefit; use your wealth to destabilize the company... it all describes someone you are glad you don't know personally or professionally.

Problem #2) The movie is paced slower than my Aunt Minnie in a walker. I've seen paint dry faster.

Problem #3) The acting... maybe I should say the affectations. Kutcher over-emphasized Jobs odd gate and stance as if it meant something. But why distract us with an antalgic back, hyper-extension of the knees, increased lordosis and anterior propulsion? It distracted from the story and took me out of the movie every time.

Problem #4) The editing was horrible. Scenes would start and finish randomly - with no emotional content. Many scenes had no relationship to the structure of the movie - taking valuable time and adding little to nothing; disjointed would be too nice of a word.

Problem #5) The strange arc of the story-line ended before it began in earnest. The writing didn't explain how the apple II was able to sustain the many, many years of subsequent failures. Do corporations really build stockholders via "image", not performance? Metaphysically, I know that untalented a-holes who use, abuse and throw people away deserve to suffer. But we didn't see suffering. We see a fabulously wealthy person, whose emotional system was M.I.A, slide through life on the efforts of others.

There is no teaching moment in this movie. There is no emotional content. There are no memorable lines or moments. This isn't a movie; it feels more like revenge, cold and pointless.