The much anticipated movie about Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has opened in the USA and reviewers are “not impressed”, in fact many have panned the movie that was said to be more about Apple than Jobs.
Starring Ashton Kutcher the movie which is due in Australian cinema’s shortly got a thumbs down more for the story by first-time screenwriter Matt Whitely than for Kutcher.
“A better title for this film might have been The History of Apple Computers,” fumes the Associated Press review. Apple’s other co-founder, Steve Wozniak, praised the two leads (Kutcher and Josh Gad, the latter of whom plays Wozniak as a sensitive and relatable foil to Jobs) but ended his brief review by saying he was “attentive and entertained, but not greatly enough to recommend the movie.””
The New York Times was harsher than most concerning Kutcher’s performance, but still took more issue with the incomplete storyline and tendency to focus on Apple’s history over Jobs’ own personal development. The film completely omits, for example, Jobs’ life after being fired from Apple and his reinvention and comeback as a tech guru as he became CEO of NeXT and the buyer and guiding force behind Pixar. It begins the film by showing Jobs’ pre-Apple life and his initial denial of paternity of his daughter Lisa, but later shows a reconciled relationship with the now college-age young lady without a word of how that happened.
The film features a soundtrack of 60s and 70s music, however, those deeply familiar with Jobs and more adept and involved in the technology are likely to find this film unsatisfying. The latter group will likely zero in on some of the more egregious examples of time compression and caricaturing of the minor players, historical inaccuracies and lack of insight into what made Jobs tick.
