Jobs

Cast of Characters:

Steve Jobs - Ashton Kutcher

Mike Markkula - Dermot Mulroney

Steve Wozniak - Josh Gad

Daniel Kottke - Lukas Haas

Arthur Rock - J. K. Simmons

Clara Jobs - Lesley Ann Warren

Rod Holt - Ron Eldard

Chris-Ann Brennan - Ahna O'Reilly

Paul Jobs - John Getz

Jack Dudman - James Woods

John Sculley - Matthew Modine

Director - Joshua Michael Stern

Screenplay - Matt Whiteley

Rated PG-13 for some drug content and brief strong language

      Ashton Kutcher dons the glasses as he takes on the influential figure that is Steve Jobs in Jobs. Before reading this you will all have to click through fifty online Apple agreements and will be subsequently tracked. Have fun.

      Jobs opens in 2001 with Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) introducing the iPod at an Apple Town Hall meeting. Following that scene, the flashbacks all the way to 1974 where a young Jobs is dropping out of college due to the high expense of tuition. Two years later, Jobs has moved back in with his adoptive parents Paul (John Getz) and Clara (Lesley Ann Warren). While working for Atari, he forms a partnership with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak (Josh God) after he sees the personal computer Wozniak has built, which would later be named the Apple I. Together, with a few other acquaintances of Jobs, they form the company Apple Computer right inside the Jobs family garage. After many failed attempts to gain venture capital, they strike success through Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney), who's willing to invest in their company. From there they go forward.

      Following the invention of the Apple II, the Apple Company achieves immediate success. The success soon goes to Jobs's head as he begins to distance himself from the very friends that helped catapult him to success. Not only that, but when his girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan (Ahna O'Reilly) tell him she's pregnant with their child, he continually denies that the baby is his, even after his daughter is born (to be fair, he does later on reconcile with her). In 1984, Jobs and Co. develop the Macintosh and although the device is met with much enthusiasm, Jobs is eventually forced out of the company by new CEO John Sculley (Matthew Modine) in 1985.

      Full disclosure - I hate Apple products (I am typing each letter with immense joy on my PC and thank God about 75% of the readers here use Windows, so the backlash will be minimal), and I didn't like Steve Jobs either. The man was a great businessman and a brilliant marketer. There's absolutely no doubt about that. He'd have to be in order to get people to line up in droves to buy the next bull shit iPhone. However, he was no Thomas Edison like I've heard him be compared to before. Wozniak was the real genius behind Apple Computer. Jobs just packaged it and sold it well. That being said, just 'cause I don't like the main character doesn't mean it'll effect my view of the movie. I don't think much at all of Mark Zuckerberg (although it's ironic that when I done with this, I'm gonna immediately post a link to here on my Facebook page), but I absolutely loved The Social Network. Rant aside now, I'm reviewing a movie, so before I walked into the screening room I threw my "Fuck you, Apple!" mentality outside the door. While the film has its share of inspired moments, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed by the movie as a whole. The film rightfully doesn't portray Jobs as some sorta Christ-like figure, but I also think they do a disservice to the story by sometimes going out of the way to really demonize him. It's no breaking news to those that knew about Jobs that he was short-tempered, mistreated his employees, and for the longest time refused to acknowledge his daughter Lisa. However, we only go skin deep into his character and some of his personal issues (such as with his daughter) are just lightly touched on. We do get plenty of moments showcasing Jobs's aggressive behavior but we don't get into the why he was that way, his motivations for it, or what exactly it was that made him tick. What made The Social Network so wonderful was that director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin really dug deep down into the character that is Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't like Zuckerberg, but by the end of the film I not only didn't hate him, I actually sorta felt sympathy for him. Here we don't quite reach as much depth as we need to see into the heart and soul of a man that was driven to succeed at all costs. Like Lovelace earlier last week, this too borders on that made for TV feel. The greatest sin though is reducing the great Apple vs. Microsoft feud to one short phone call scene. You could glean an entire film out of just that, and to keep it to just that moment in the film was a mistake on writer Matt Whiteley's part. As for the performances, I do give Kutcher his props. From a macro point of view, in terms of greatest performances of all time, or even just great performances this year, it doesn't crack the list. That being said, Kutcher does nail the look and mannerisms of Jobs down pat (aside from the unnecessary 2001 scene with him under old age makeup that doesn't work), and from a micro point of view, in terms of what Kutcher's body of work has given us, this is a solid effort from him and by far and away one of his better performances. It's very thin competition though. We don't get much from the supporting cast. It's a shame that veteran acting talents such as James Woods, Dermot Mulroney, J. K. Simmons and Matthew Modine are given very little to do. One exception though is Josh Gad. This is my first time seeing him onscreen and boy, does he hit out of the park as Wozniak. It's a terrific performance from him.

      While it is an ambitious looking film, overall it winds up falling short of what it wants to be. It's not a bad film, but this is more a straightforward, by the books biopic that doesn't go much in depth inside a man that, whether you loved him or hated him, was still one of the most influential men of the past thirty years. It's definitely worth a rental, but when stacked up to other biopic films, it's mostly disappointing. I give Jobs a C+ (★★½).