Movie Review: Jobs

Steve Jobs was an enigma. He made products with and for the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the ones who see things differently, the ones who are not fond of rules. You could quote him, disagree with him, glorify or vilify him. The only thing you couldn’t do was ignore him. Because he changed things. He pushed the human race forward. And while some saw him as the crazy one, we saw genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

The film Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher is quite unlike its titular visionary. It is not made by the crazy ones, the misfits or the rebels – it is made by people who don’t see things differently, people who follow formula. You can neither quote the film, nor glorify it. The only thing you can do is forget about it. Because it says nothing and doesn’t push the storytelling forward. And while some saw the film as genius, we see a lame cash grab. Because the people who are crazy enough to think this film could change the world are the ones who reach for your wallet when you’re not looking.

Perhaps it’s the case of David Fincher setting seriously high standards with The Social Network. Perhaps it’s the fact that Pirates of the Silicon Valley arrived more than a decade ago and told the exact same story in a much better way. Perhaps it’s because the film doesn’t even try to be factually correct. Perhaps it’s because Kutcher does a caricature of Steve Jobs, content to let his facial resemblance do all the acting. Or perhaps it’s that the film plays like a checklist of Steve Jobs’ Wikipedia page. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of those things, because Jobs simply fails on every imaginable level, tanking at every turn, much like Apple’s Power Mac G4 Cube and the Bandai Pippin. This is neither a film made for the geeks nor for audiences who aren’t familiar with Jobs’ life and persona. This is an extremely lame high school play, made by a bunch of hilariously clueless people who don’t seem to know the concepts of attention to detail and internet backlash.

There’s nothing really more to say about the film, apart from its sheer ineptness oozing through every agonizing second of its excruciatingly long two plus hour runtime. Pointing out each of its flaws would mean typing out a 1000 page document in bold Goudy Stout and thanking Jobs for paying attention to calligraphy and being adamant about including fonts in the word processor. Jobs was extremely impressed with Noah Wyle’s performance in Pirates of the Silicon Valley, he even invited Wyle to 1999's Apple keynote and had him fool the audience. But had he seen this film he’d have critiqued it with his trademark product review triage of words that made him infamous – This is shit. 

(First published in MiD Day)