From the moment I saw the first clip from Jobs before the movie actually screened, I was somewhat ambivalent about it. I just didn't think what I was seeing in the clip was all that good and I actually said elsewhere on this forum that the casting of Ashton Kutcher was a bad choice in casting him in such a highly regarded figure like Steve Jobs. I don't think Kutcher is a bad actor, but I do think that his range is very limited given the fact that he always plays the same type of character for the most part. He brings a lot of baggage into this movie and it's very hard to reconcile that image when we are being asked to take the subject matter of what Jobs is doing seriously. The movie is far from perfect, but there are flashes within the film that are quite engaging in spite of some serious flaws with it.

I think my biggest peeve with the movie isn't necessarly the acting, but the format it's presented on. Having read the book that the movie is based on, there were just way too many pivotal moments that are completely dropped for the sake of "moving the story along". That's all fine and dandy if the goal is to make a movie at X amount of minutes and not to exceed it by one second. The problem is, the story is compromised from the get go and does Steve Jobs and everything he did a great disservice. The ONLY people that are going except this are people that already know the ins and outs of his life, be it by reading any number of books or watching countless documentaries on the man. But what about the average Joe that only knows the basics of the man? If those same people go into watching this movie, they are only getting 30% of his story and I'm being very fair with that 30%.

That's why I think the format of a Big Screen production is absolutely not the way to go here. This is a story that needs to be told in full and a mini-series on TV could and would have fleshed a lot of missing pieces within the story that are dropped for the sake of time constraints. Is it overkill? I don't think so. There was so much back story that was vital to shaping his life and how he projected onto other people that to watch this version of the movie play out is to leave any average Joe wondering what the hell is going on as the story makes huge leaps from one moment to the next. What's funny is that at times, watching the movie, it didn't look any better than what I've seen on TV. As for Kutcher, watching him embody Jobs is great and at other times, not so much.

 I really wanted to like the movie, more than I did, because there are some great scenes that play out with such ease. But most of the time I kept having to fill in the gaps on my own which was more work than I cared to do, especially when watching a movie is suppose to be fun. I say this is a Rent at best, but I would rather steer you toward reading Steve Jobs instead. FYI, the ending sucked donkey balls. If you are going to open the movie up where Jobs is announcing to the world the new product that is going to change the world (the iPod), you damn well better circle back to this moment by the time you get to the end, which is customary for any film that uses this type of framing device. They don't. The ending just falls flat on its face and you're left wondering "this is the end?".

This was one of those movies that was exactly what I expected it to be, it wasn't better than I thought it would be, it wasn't worse than I though it would be.  it was serviceable.  At NO point did I think that Ashton Kutcher disappeared into the role, and I never found the character that compelling or interesting.  I wasn't really on his side in terms of creating the greatest computer out there, even though IRL I'm totally that kind of design freak.  Now having said that, there were a couple moments where I liked his salesmanship: when he sells the Apple I boards to that shop and points out that the shop can make more money selling their own screens and peripherals.  It's probably because that's a talent I wish I had.

Did you get the feeling that this movie was trying to go the Social Network route, showing one renegade college kid creating something out of his basement that changed the world?  I do like seeing all these little operations become big businesses with those same weird players in suits in an expensive office acting like they have no idea what a real place of business looks like (Wolf of Wall Street did that too), it's sort of comforting in a way.  Like "hey, we're all trying to figure out this sh*t."

BTW, the "crazy ones" monologue at the end felts as forced and out of place as the "Captain's Oath" (still not an oath) at the end of Star Trek into Darkness.

And am I the only one who, when they showed the Ridley Scott commercial (notice they didn't drop the director's name or ANYTHING), it looked like they downloaded it off Youtube instead of actually getting the TV-quality reel?  What was up with that?  This whole movie sort of felt "unauthorized," like they didn't have permission to use Jobs' name or likeness so they didn't have access to the sort of back catalogue and resources as, say, Saving Mr Banks.

Chip, did you happen to see the iSteve movie with Justin Long?

If you wanna talk unauthorized and cheap, the Justin Long one... shot over the course of maybe two weeks tops, budget of nothing, it was  a pre-emptive strike against movies like Jobs, knowing that it would be bad and taking it one step further, and throwing in the same stupid tropes you see in every biopic and computer movie (there was a scene where Steve Jobs and Melinda Gates have sex with virtual reality helmets).  The whole thing was just so stupid.

It's hilarious because it's totally played as what people at that time expected the future of virtual reality to be.