Jobs Less Enjoyable Than an Apple Ad

It looks as though most critics are ready to throw apples at the new Jobs flick, starring Ashton Kutcher and directed by Joshua Michael Stern. They say it focuses too much on Steve Jobs' professional life and not enough on his personal life, and ends up being something less entertaining than an Apple ad. Perhaps Jobs' next biopic, currently in development, will have better luck.

• Kutcher gives a "compelling performance" but otherwise the film "reduces [Jobs'] life to a series of inspirations, tirades, and motivational speeches," writes Peter Keough at the Boston Globe. "It seems like an extended Apple ad, with a few gossipy asides, but less entertaining."

• Michael O'Sullivan at the Washington Post concedes "Kutcher is not a disaster" but agrees that the film focuses too much on the professional, "giving an unfortunate new meaning to the film's title." Josh Gad, however, stands out as Steve Wozniak. "I think I could watch a whole movie called Woz," he writes.
• Put simply, "it would drive Steve Jobs nuts to know that the new movie about his life has all the sex appeal of a PowerPoint presentation," writes Manohla Dargis at the New York Times. "The Great Man theory of history that's recycled in this movie is inevitably unsatisfying ... After a while, you don't care."
• Mick LaSalle isn't so harsh, calling Jobs a "satisfying account" in the San Francisco Chronicle. "In the last half hour, the movie slows down and starts to disappoint," but not the to degree that Jobs/Apple/computer fans will be turned off. "At its best, it's a good picture, and at its worst, it's almost good."

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