Steve Jobs

Director: Joshua Michael Stern
Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad

A movie on Steve Jobs... and why not since he is not only one of the most iconic figures in the tech industry, but also one of the more interesting ones. Considering there has been a movie about Jobs, well not Jobs specifically, but the 'Silicon Valley revolution' (Pirates of Silicon Valley), you can't help but draw comparisons at least where casting is concerned.

For starters, Ashton Kutcher as Jobs is not convincing. The problem lies in the fact that he looks and sounds dopier than Jobs ever did. Add that to the fact that he doesn't have the charisma of the Apple CEO, just makes the story seem fictional, even though it’s supposed to be a biopic.

Compare that to the casting in Pirates of Silicon Valley, Noah Wyle (Falling Skies) as Jobs and Joey Slotnick as Wozniak just made you feel like you were watching the real Jobs and Wozniak working out their Apple 1 computer.

The script also doesn’t jump out at you, it isn’t paced well and it is filled with famous Jobs quotes and anecdotes from his life. There is nothing there that anyone who read any spread in any newspaper on his passing didn’t already know. The movie also falters in terms of editing. It fails to keep you at the edge of your seat, focusing more on the emotional drama and not so much on how the products came to be or the struggle behind them.

There is no mention of how Jobs stole the Graphical User Interface from Xerox, or the relation between Jobs and Bill Gates, even though they showed him screaming at Gates after he discovered that Microsoft made their own version of the GUI to go with IBM computers, accusing him of stealing his Operating System.

There is also no conclusion to the story either, after Jobs gets the iMac out the story promptly ends with ‘In September 2012 Apple was the most valuable company in the world,’ ignoring the products that actually got them there. This is despite the fact that the movie started with an older Jobs launching the iPod.

The entire movie fails to impress. It is at most a fluff piece made to glorify Steve Jobs, which it does badly. We think you might want to wait till the movie comes out on TV. But while you wait, try and get your hands on Pirates of Silicon Valley instead. It is still a good watch and portrays the characters in a much better way.

By - Jaison Lewis