A great man I am fortunate enough to know on first name basis once told me: ''Ben, once your start being successful, you're always going to have some critics. It's impossible to please everybody. You're bound to find someone who doesn't like what you stand for.'' Every great man encounters opposition from mediocre minds, jealous people and folks who just have no need for what they're offering. It's what happened to Steve Jobs and to people who changed the way we live. Only Jobs was rewarded with a ridiculous substanceless fanboy movie that offers nothing but boundless awe for its subject. I like Jobs as much as the next guy, but JOBS sucked. It's a stupid biopic.
JOBS covers the life of Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) from college to the launch of the iPod in 2001, one of Apple's biggest cornerstone moment and arguably a paradigm shift in Occidental society. Conrtrary to popular belief, it is not based on Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, it is an original screenplay that corrals a series of more or less meaningful moment in Steve Jobs' life that draws a portrait of an enlightened, misunderstood and frustrated man. He is always right and everybody else is always wrong, because they cannot see the big picture. In the universe of JOBS, greed is the instrument that narrow-minded people use to stop progress. Do you know Captain Obvious' cousin, Captain Irony?
Here's what the first JOBS scene looks like.
Ashton Kutcher walks on stage, looking frail and soulful.
JOBS: This is a very important moment. I told you I was going to change the world and I did. Let me introduce you 1000 songs-in-your-pocket. Let me introduce to you, THE iPOD.
Standing ovation and soulful smiles, from people who haven't seen the product yet and have zero understanding of what it actually is. Close up on Ashton Kutcher smiling soulfully.
The movie is filled with hollow moments like this, where the viewer is supposed to pick up on the delirious atmosphere and feel grateful for the exist. Only during the inception of the first Apple computer that JOBS actually bothers to tell you what's the product actually improving and what Steve Jobs' creative vision was. Otherwise, you're stuck with a series of meaningless scenes that are meant to be inspiring, such as a young Jobs, high as a kite, twirling in a cornfield and having visions of what its future is going to be. I'm not even kidding. That scene is actually IN the movie. There is a ridiculous amount of scenes where Jobs miscommunicates with people not worthy of his vision, too. Then Jobs gets frustrated and starts throwing tantrums. It's a recurring theme.
For a movie that it supposed to chant the glory of its subject, JOBS makes the co-founder of Apple come off like an asshole more often than not. I guess that he was a ruthless businessman and that you need a certain amount of snake blood to succeed at that level, but JOBS goes unnecessarily deep into personal stuff. For example, there are scenes about Steve Jobs disowning his first born over and over again, claiming he can't possibly be the father. The movie implies that JOBS feels like he should take responsibility for a child that's most likely is, but that he can't let a domestic life get in the way of his world-altering vision. Then about ten years later, Jobs just walks home and starts a family life with the wife and kid he's turn his back to, just because he feels like it? The child subplot was mere afterthought to the director of JOBS and it torpedoed the movie's ambition of portraying Steve Jobs as an inspiring guy.
Don't get me wrong. I love Steve Jobs and I'm an Apple fan. I sincerely regret the day I switched to Galaxy, just to try it out, and can't wait to have an iPhone again. I believe most of the criticism against Jobs comes from pragmatic tech industry guys who didn't understand the essence of what he was doing: product design. We've lost a great mind way before its time, when he died (my dad is three years older than him and perfectly healthy). Idiotic fanboy movies like JOBS are not going to help sell his genuis to future generations, though. It's a futile and hollow horn-blowing movie that lead to futile and hollow statements like this, from people who like to blow their own horn.
I guess JOBS is a movie that reflects the era we're living in better than the life of Steve Jobs. No doubt that he deserved better and he WILL get a better biopic soon.
For a movie that it supposed to chant the glory of its subject, JOBS makes the co-founder of Apple come off like an asshole more often than not. I guess that he was a ruthless businessman and that you need a certain amount of snake blood to succeed at that level, but JOBS goes unnecessarily deep into personal stuff. For example, there are scenes about Steve Jobs disowning his first born over and over again, claiming he can't possibly be the father. The movie implies that JOBS feels like he should take responsibility for a child that's most likely is, but that he can't let a domestic life get in the way of his world-altering vision. Then about ten years later, Jobs just walks home and starts a family life with the wife and kid he's turn his back to, just because he feels like it? The child subplot was mere afterthought to the director of JOBS and it torpedoed the movie's ambition of portraying Steve Jobs as an inspiring guy.
Don't get me wrong. I love Steve Jobs and I'm an Apple fan. I sincerely regret the day I switched to Galaxy, just to try it out, and can't wait to have an iPhone again. I believe most of the criticism against Jobs comes from pragmatic tech industry guys who didn't understand the essence of what he was doing: product design. We've lost a great mind way before its time, when he died (my dad is three years older than him and perfectly healthy). Idiotic fanboy movies like JOBS are not going to help sell his genuis to future generations, though. It's a futile and hollow horn-blowing movie that lead to futile and hollow statements like this, from people who like to blow their own horn.