I really like this movie, and to think that because I believed what some of the supposed respected film critics said, I was going to give it a miss. I am coming to the movie from a different angle than most film critics would. I work in the tech industry, and have been involved in technology for the last thirty years. This is my area. I've read a few of the insider books about Apple and I've read a couple on Steve Jobs. The movie is necessarily compressed, otherwise it would go on for 10 hours, and even then, some landmark points are only given a few seconds screen time. It's like a Steve Jobs highlights movie. Fortunately, having read the books, I was able to fill in the gaps, so I knew what everything was and where everything fit. His relationships with his various women was given very little screen time, and the story of the development of the Macintosh, which I admit could fill a movie on it's own, came and went very quickly, but at least it was given a little bit of time.
Ashton Kutcher certainly looks a lot like Steve Jobs. He does this funny walk which started to annoy me a little. I don't even know if the real Steve Jobs actually walked like that. Otherwise I think he did a good job. He won't win an Oscar or anything. Some of the other characters were a little underdeveloped, but in a movie as compressed as this, something had to be sacrificed to fit in the time line I suppose. The only other performance I liked was Dermot Mulroney, as Mike Markkula, who got the money for Apple to get going in the first place. All the other actors, including James Woods, who got about twenty seconds on screen, were there just to move the story along.
I can't help thinking that the story of Steve Jobs and Apple probably needs a TV mini series type of treatment, because a lot of things were left out of the movie, such as the iPhone and the iPad. The film didn't even mention that Steve Jobs died, so there could well be many people who see the movie about the iPhone guy, and not know he is no longer with us (I can't imagine there would be too many of those around).
Well, that's all. I'm glad I actually did go and see it. I think I'll go an re-read Walter Isaacson's book again.
And if you're interested, here are a few books I've found about Steve Jobs and Apple:
"Leading Apple With Steve Jobs" by Jay Elliot at Amazon.com
"Icon Steve Jobs" by Jeffery S. Young and William L. Simon at Amazon.com
"Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson at Amazon.com
And one of my favourites, "Revolution in the Valley" by Macintosh pioneer Andy Hertzfeld, although it may be hard to get now.
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