Ashton Kutcher is
Surprisingly Superb as Apple Founder Steve Jobs
By Chris Sabga
 |
Release Date: August 16, 2013 – U.S.
Rating: PG-13
Genre:
Biography, Drama
Running Time:
128 minutes
Director:
Joshua Michael Stern
Writer: Matt
Whiteley
Cast: Ashton
Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney,
Josh Gad, Lukas Haas, Matthew Modine,
J.K.
Simmons, James Woods, Kevin Dunn,
Giles Matthey
|
Watching "Jobs"
is somewhat like operating an iPod Shuffle; it rapidly shuffles
through the highlights and lowlights of Steve Jobs' "insanely
great" life. It races through the facts covered in biographies
such as Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs,
Infinite Loop, and
others. "Jobs" never lingers on any one event for too long,
which is both a positive and a negative: the story moves at a
breakneck pace, but the film provides only a cursory, skin deep,
surface treatment of its subject.
Critics
and fans alike have easily dismissed Ashton Kutcher over the years,
but I've always defended his talent. Here, he delivers the
performance of his career as
Steve Jobs, expertly
channeling the Apple
founder's voice, inflections,
and reported facial expressions and mannerisms. It is clear that
Kutcher has poured his heart and soul into his portrayal of Jobs. He,
dare I say, deserves an Academy Award nomination. After all, Meryl
Streep won the Oscar for her incredible acting
in the otherwise unbearable
Margaret Thatcher biopic,
"The
Iron Lady." Both films are similar in structure: they
present
a rushed
highlight reel of people, places, and historical events. Of course,
Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep, so she can get away with being rewarded
for great work in a movie that isn't nearly
as good as she is. Kutcher
obviously does not have the same reputation or cachet. Like Streep,
Kutcher is better than the film he's in, but
"Jobs" is
ultimately far
more enjoyable and effective than "The Iron Lady."
Some
might nitpick the "facts" of the film, but it never stays with anything long enough for any real controversy to arise. (Jobs'
ill-fated NeXT project is briefly covered, but his years at Pixar are
strangely absent.) In cases
where there are disputing stories, the movie picks a side and sticks
with it – for better or worse. One example: Steve "Woz"
Wozniak (played here by Josh Gad) claims that Jobs cheated him on the
payoff for the Atari game "Breakout," but Jobs steadfastly
denied that his entire life. In this instance, Woz's version of
events wins out.
Gad
does a great job, playing Woz as a sweet innocent who never quite
adapts to corporate life. The idealistic Woz eventually becomes a
fish out of water at Apple as the company and his relationship with
Jobs gradually changes.
In
addition to Kutcher and Gad, several other notable actors show up:
James Woods as Reed College professor and dean Jack Dudman, Lukas
Haas as Apple employee Daniel Kottke, and Kevin Dunn as eventual
Apple CEO Gil Amelio, but the highlights are Dermot Mulroney as
entrepreneur Mike Markkula, Matthew Modine as former Pepsi head John
Sculley, and J.K Simmons as investor Arthur Rock.
It's
fun to watch Rock the way
J.K. Simmons portrays him – as
an office terminator with
scary '80s hair and '70s glasses. In
anyone else's hands, it
might have come across as cartoonish and excessive, but Simmons is
skilled enough to make it realistic. Meanwhile,
Mulroney's Markkula
is depicted as a skittish stooge who will go in whichever direction
the wind blows, and Modine's
Sculley comes across as an
uptight, buttoned-up,
too-corporate,
sugar water salesman who
doesn't quite seem to
understand what he's selling now.
All three actors are
top-notch, as usual.
 |
| The real Steve Jobs with the first iMac. (Picture courtesy of computerhistory.org) |
English newcomer Giles Matthey is
also wonderful in a small
role as Jonathan
Ive, who holds a torch for what Apple used to be and wants to help
restore the organization to its former glory. That's
demonstrated in the film with Ive's bold, stylish design of the first
iMac.
As
Atari higher-up Al Alcorn (David Denman) says in the film, Jobs is an
"asshole." That's probably true, but as great as Kutcher is
in the role, he's limited
by the script, which
shoehorns him into showing mostly the
negative side of computer
icon. His
Jobs walks around acting like a psychopath – pouting perennially
like a toddler on the verge of a temper tantrum. There are only
fleeting glimpses of the charismatic, charming Jobs that changed the
world. That approach
reminds me of Michael Mann's overrated "Ali," in which Will
Smith portrays the famous boxer as an angry activist who rarely
cracked a smile. The real Ali could light up a room. So could the
real Jobs.
One
of the bigger missed
opportunity in "Jobs"
is its depiction of the famous "sugar water" pitch.
To lure Pespi CEO John Sculley over to Apple, Jobs baited him with
an irresistible hook: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the
rest of your life," he challenged, "or do you want to come
with me and change the world?" Instead of showing the hypnotic
meeting between Jobs and Sculley, the movie has Sculley tell the
story in a joking manner while everyone around him laughs
appreciatively. Perhaps
that's meant to show what an ill-fit Sculley would turn
out to be for the Apple
culture, but I would have still preferred to hear the line from
Kutcher's magnetic version of Jobs.
"Jobs"
is a mixed bag overall, but I like it enough to recommend it. Ashton
Kutcher may not get to bring
every
aspect of Steve Jobs' fascinating personality to life, but it's still
far and away the best
performance of his career.
It's a shame that his
astonishing work as Jobs will
mostly go
ignored because the movie – like
the Lisa Computer – was a
critical and commercial bust.
Full Disclosure:
This review was written on a Windows PC.
