Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Jobs

This is topic Jobs in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 09-14-2013, 07:53 PM:

Steve Jobs was well renowned for being very difficult to work with. As one half of the main driving force in the developing personal computer industry (the other being Microsoft's Bill Gates), it was his vision (borrowed heavily from XPARC) which drove innovation into the personal computer marketplace. But, being a workplace psychopath, many suffered his perfectionism and ego along the way. So the question is: will this film merely be a love letter to Jobs or will it be an honest appraisal of the man with all his inherent strengths and flaws? Thankfully the film avoids archetypal Apple fanboyism and goes with the latter.

Ashton Kutcher's likeness to Jobs is commendable and his performance is good (not "insanely great", but good); this is probably the best thing he's done in his rather undistinguished acting career. Other performances from Dermott Mulroney, Josh Gad, Matthew Modine (another good likeness with John Sculley) and J.K Simmons are good if unremarkable.

"Unremarkable" is a good word to describe Jobs (the movie, not the man). It's a fairly pedestrian telling of Jobs' life, hitting the major notes without excelling in the telling of the story. It's curious, given Jobs' recent death, that the film stops at the introduction of the iPod, eschewing further innovations such as the iPhone and the iPad and continuing on to Jobs' passing. For this reason, the film feels a little unfinished.

In many ways, Jobs' story is better told in documentary format, free from the shackles of a dramatic narrative, the real life drama in Jobs' life is sufficient to make the truth more interesting than any fictionalised account. To this end, Bob Cringely's TV programme, Triumph of the Nerds (based on his own book, Accidental Empires) makes for much more interesting viewing (and it's more entertaining to boot).

6.5 out of 10