Jobs

Joshua Michael Stern's "Jobs" is like an assembly line for the best moments in the career of Steve Jobs, but seriously lacking in depth, and without much significance. It is a truly unremarkable biopic of the "master of innovation" as you could possibly imagine. "Jobs" follows an overly safe, unimaginative course that clocks in at a tiresome 122 minutes. The storytelling is painfully straightforward, covering only the principal events of his professional trials and tribulations, and providing little else beyond what is already public knowledge.

Developing his imagination for computer programming at Atari, Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) brings in his friend Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) to help with the hardware aspect, forming a partnership that would soon lead to the founding and development of Apple Computers, a force within the industry throughout the 1980s. Steve is not prepared for the financial demands and the ruthless business mentality, and is eventually forced out of the company he began, only to return in the 1990s with a fresh game plan on how to bring Apple back into the public consciousness, and to dominate the industry once again.

"Jobs" is a biopic with a very narrow focus, and without any sense of risk or adventure. It is so intent on covering Jobs' entire corporate career, that it simply reduces his personal life to a footnote. Stern completely glosses over Jobs' personal life, which is essential to any self-respecting biopic. The entire production feels rushed and slapped together simply to benefit from being the first one out of the gate.

To his credit, Kutcher puts forth a good effort, and he undeniably looks the part of Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, Ashton always looks like he is trying too hard to play the part, and never fully becomes the character he's portraying. His limitations on the big screen prove to be a major liability. He has developed a screen persona as likable character, which has served him well with numerous TV sitcoms. Not so much with movies.

What emerges is a movie that has "a made for TV" feel, which depicts a self-absorbed creep who stabs everyone in the back to simply to get his way that goes on for two plus hours. A thoroughly unsatisfying tribute, and we are still left none the wiser as to what made "The Father of the Digital Revolution" beyond what we already know.

It must be difficult for an actor to convincingly portray a world famous person whose death only two years before means that his image is still relatively fresh in the public consciousness. It must also be pretty tough for filmmakers to portray the life of an iconic figure in the space of two hours. I give "Jobs" (PG-13, 2:02) credit for accomplishing one of those two tasks. (In addition, there was the pressure of knowing that another version of the film was being written by the highly-esteemed Aaron Sorkin.) When it comes to portraying the legend who co-founded Apple computers, Ashton Kutcher does an excellent… Jobs. The actor uses his natural resemblance to the computer genius and adds just enough of Steve Jobs' voice, mannerisms and walk to help us (mostly) forget that we're watching Ashton Kutcher, but he doesn't overdo it by trying to do a perfect impression which could have crossed over into caricature. This film represents some of Kutcher's best work to date, but not quite award worthy.

Unfortunately, the script isn't strong enough to give us the whole picture of Steve Jobs' remarkable life. As the film traces the rise, the fall, and then the beginning of the resurrection of Apple the computer brand, the focus is divided too much between the company and the man. If you know more about the life of Steve Jobs, you'll be disappointed when you realize you're not getting to see the full arc of his life. The film would have been better off calling itself "Apple", but even then, I would have found it lacking.

This film reminded me of "The Social Network", but without the same level of entertainment in its storytelling. The supporting actors, including Josh Gad as Apple's other founder, Steve Wozniak, Dermot Mulroney, as initial Apple financier and eventual CEO Mike Markkula, and Matthew Modine as John Scully, Markkula's successor as CEO, show the passion that those closest to the company have for Apple, but the film is supposedly about Steve Jobs. While the script does touch on some of Jobs' personal life, it seems much more concerned with the company that he helped start. "Jobs" may give us a measure of the man, but doesn't do the best job at telling his STORY. Doing the best job I can as a reviewer (while still doing my other… jobs), I give this one a "B".

Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) is shown starting from his college drop out years in 1974 to working at Atari in 1976. He joins up with Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) bringing Woz's computer to Homebrew. With Woz, they start Apple in his garage. Former Intel guy Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney) becomes their investor.

I'm sure Steve Jobs fans have a thousand mistakes they like to point out and a thousand more complaints about his douchie portrayal. I have a more simpler complaint. This is no more than a simple made-for-TV movie. Ashton Kutcher is doing more mimicry than actually taking on the persona. I actually put most of this on the shoulders of director Joshua Michael Stern. There are too many Jobs speeches and pontifications. It's an easy way to copy Steve. Maybe it's too easy. It needs to go deeper.

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.