Movie Review: ‘Steve Jobs’

Michael Fassbender stars as Steve Jobs in the latest movie about the late Apple founder. Time Warner Cable News film critic Neil Rosen filed the following review of “Steve Jobs.”

Not a conventional biopic in any sense, it is a movie in three acts, and each one takes place on the day of an important product launch - namely, the original Macintosh in 1984, the Next computer in 1988 and the iMac in 1998.

I love how we never see any moments of the patented Steve Jobs presentations themselves. Each act ends seconds before Jobs takes the stage. It is about the frantic hours leading up to launch, and by using this unusual device, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle paint a vivid picture of Jobs as an egomaniacal genius - a man who's cruel to his employees and is also unwilling to give anyone else credit. As Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, played by Seth Rogen, points out, Jobs never invented anything.

This movie demystifies Steve Jobs and offers up vivid insight into what makes him tick. Much of the film centers on the relationship he has with his daughter, Lisa, who he initially denies paternity, as he makes her mother, played by Katherine Waterston, beg for money.

Michael Fassbender is excellent in the title role and Kate Winslet is also quite good as Jobs’ confidant and right hand.

Jeff Daniels plays former Apple CEO John Scully and Sorkin gets Freudian when Scully keeps asking Jobs how he feels about the fact that he was adopted. Sorkin and Boyle paint this early rejection in his life as the root of all of Jobs' bad behavior towards other people.

The wonderful rat-a-tat-tat writing is so distinctly Sorkin, and it is an interesting film for people who have seen many of the other movies and TV specials about Jobs. This one is a different take and a very worthwhile and interesting one at that.