JOBS

Kutcher is wonderful as Jobs, and you can tell he’s worked hard to deserve this role; his performance is simply let down by the material. The story to too close and too far away at the same time. The technical impact Jobs had is looked at too closely, leaving those (like myself) who can’t look at a motherboard and see brilliance in the dark. When it comes to office and boardroom politics, the film sheds no new light on the events, meaning anyone willing to do a quick Google search could learn more than what's shown here.

Jobs’ genius and innovation is definitely revered, however the film is brave in its depiction of this cold, calculating man. As one of the most betrayed and betraying people, the bridges he burned are well and truly traversed. The film goes from a man ousted by his own company as he sends it hurtling into bankruptcy to him saving the company months away from insolvency, with no more than a ‘1996’ title card. The story is simply too much for 128 minutes, and yet it still focuses on the wrong thing - in the case of a film called ‘Jobs’, it focuses on Apple, and not well.

When faced with a 571 page biography in addition to the people who knew the man himself and countless hours of newsreels, interviews and footage, the whole film plays as though director Joshua Michael Stern (‘Swing Vote’) and screenwriter Matt Whiteley decided to simply read the CliffsNotes.

The irony that this mediocre and superficial film is about the most inspiring and innovative man in recent history who literally changed the world and the way we live in it, should not be lost.