Quick Review: Jobs

Director: Joshua Michael Stern

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Josh Gad, J.K. Simmons, Matthew Modine, Dermot Mulroney, Lukas Haas

Genre: Biopic

Year: 2013

Run Time: 122 Minutes

How: Theaters

If you have been alive within the last 10 years, chances are you have heard the name Steve Jobs. The late Apple founder undoubtedly changed our world, but does this new biopic really do justice to the man who brought us personal computing and so much more. 

The film opens with an older Jobs about to unveil the iPod. Ashton Kutcher does a solid Jobs impression for the most part, but occasionally the makeup seems obvious and all to often I found myself seeing too much Kutcher and not enough Jobs.

Soon enough we find ourselves in 1974 Portland, following young Steve, who has dropped out of Reed College, but is still attending classes, including a calligraphy course which made a deeply impactful for him. After studying at Reed and experimenting with LSD, Steve spends  seven months in India studying Zen Buddhism.

Jobs returns to Palo Alto and begins working for a budding Atari, designing  the circuit board for Brick Breaker. Even at Atari, Job's berating aggressive management style is apparent, as he yells a developer who insists color isn't possible on the primitive machines. Jobs recruits his neighbor, computer wiz and fellow Steve, Steve "Woz" Wozniak (Gad) to help. Jobs stumbles upon one of Woz's pet projects, which allows a computer to be hooked up to a monitor and keyboard. Steve sees the massive potential of Woz's creation and quickly works to convince Woz that they should sell the primitive Apple 1. After a presentation at the Homebrew Computer Club, Jobs gets an offer from the owner of computer parts store. The pair begin producing computers in Job's parents garage (actually filmed at Job's childhood home), bringing on a few friends to help.

Selling the Apple ones, Jobs immediately begins work on the Apple 2 which will be a all in one device, complete with keyboard, monitor and color graphics. The film explores the growth of Apple, the failures of the Lisa, Newton and original Macintosh, as well as the boardroom drama that unfolded in the 90's, which led to Jobs being ousted and eventually brought back to run his struggling company.

Kutcher does manage to capture Job's silver tongue as well as his rage. Kutcher even became a fruitarian and  went barefoot in order to channel the real Jobs, something which landed him in the emergency room. Job's attention to detail and desire for perfection are not overlooked, as seen when he fires a programmer who doesn't share his view on the importance of type face .Josh Gad is an endearing, laid back Woz, complete with crazy hair. His presence and technical know how is a strong counterpoint to the outspoken Jobs.

All things considered this is a fascinating story and Kutcher give a great amount of effort, but ultimately it falls short. The film seems like it can't make up its mind, trying to focus on both the company and the man, but doing neither too spectacularly. It often felt like parts of the story were merely glossed over and barely addressed, like his rivalry with Bill Gates or his girlfriend becoming pregnant and his prompt declaration that the child was not his. 

The film ends with a side by side comparison of all the real people and their actor equivalent, which seemed like a "look how well we cast these people" ploy, which would be cool, if this was a better movie.  It is a truly ambitious film, but lacks execution. Director Joshua Michael Stern was probably not the man who should have been trusted with this project, based on his limited and unimpressive track record (Swing Vote, Neverwas). 

The film has received backlash from Woz himself, saying that while the acting was on point, he was "abhored" by the script. It looks like anybody looking for a great Jobs biopic might just want to hold out for the Aaron Sorkin adaptation of the Walter Isaacson biography, which is currently in the works.

Ultimately for a film about the Machiavelli of the Mac, a man  whose vision revolutionized the computer, music, and communication industries, the film fails to live up to the man. A shame for a movie that could have been so much more.

Rating: 5.3