Review: Jobs

Release date: August 16, 2013
Running time: 122 minutes
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, J.K. Simmons, Josh Gad
Who to see it with: Your favorite iFriend

David:

Jobs tells the story of Steve Job's past, focusing on his founding of Apple. Although Steve Jobs has a become well known persona, the movie hopes to tell the story of this unique visionary and his interactions outside of the public eye. When a movie is made about a very popular and recently deceased individual, there is always a risk that the movie will sugar-coat much of the less desirable aspects of his life and personality. Thankfully, Jobs includes both Steve Jobs's great vision and his many flaws. It accomplishes this thanks to the acting of Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher admirably captures many of Steve Job's personality quirks and of portrays what I believe is an accurate representation of the man. Kutcher was apparently obsessed with Steve and was already taking on his mannerisms during his audition for the role. He is joined by an also impressive Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak and a host of other portrayals of Silicon Valley pioneers. 

As previously mentioned, the movie tells the story of both Jobs and the founding and rise of Apple Computers. Mostly set in the 70s and 80s, the movie does of a good job of portraying Silicon Valley at that time. The styles, the cars, the technology all are remniscent of that time period. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can tell about the life of a very interesting man in two hours. And although there will likely be other movies to touch on other aspects of his life, there is a sense that the movie is just unfinished. It stops fairly abruptly and doesn't tell as much of the Apple story as I was hoping to see. Little details aren't fleshed out, like what happened to some of the other individuals in Job's life as both he and his company rise. It seems like a lot of time is spent on telling the inital part of Job's story and after that the movie ran out of time and couldn't finish their story. Additionally, there are some fairly corny scenes expounding on Job's vision; although it may or may not have happened, it felt a little too convenient. In the end, Jobs tells an interesting and well done story that just doesn't feel complete. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I wish they would have fully fleshed out the story of one of the most influential men of our time. It's worth seeing for Ashton's great portrayal of Steve Jobs, but just make sure to

Rent it.