Jobs

Bookmark and Share

Tue, 08/27/2013 - 11:06 -- Bob Gibbons

By Bob Gibbons

JobsSteve Jobs could see the future, but he always seemed to have trouble with the present. “My job is not to be nice to people,” he said.  “It’s to make them better.” And so, when you worked for him or with him, you couldn’t just get some things right, you had to get everything right. You couldn’t just do things better, you had to do them differently. Unless and until you did, he’d berate and belittle and badger you. He was a man of little patience and volatile temper, a visionary, not a guide. Jobs would be disappointed with this movie because it’s what he was not: cautious, careful, safe. Kutcher’s similarities to Job in look, speech cadence and style are uncanny, inspired. He finds Job’s anger and his drive, but he never seems to find his genius or his heart. Josh Gad, as Steve Wozniak, a child-bear of a man most comfortable with a soldering iron, is the emotional center of this film. He gives us a full human being to care about.  The movie is two hours long, but feels shorter. Lines are quotable, parts are inspirational, but it feels as if we are skipping too quickly and superficially across the tips of a life.  The script covers familiar ground and those who’ve read even a few articles about Jobs will find nothing here that’s surprising or new. And the quality of the storytelling, the lighting, the cinematography, and the production design all have a direct-to-video feel; they never rise above mediocre. The genius of the man is not matched by the talent in the filmmaking.  If Jobs were still around, he’d make this better.

Category: