Jobs

Ashton Kutcher does such an amazing job portraying Steve Jobs that this makes the movie worth watching by itself.  Kutcher looks a bit like Jobs, making him an ideal actor to play him, but not completely like Jobs, so the film plays some games with us.  At first we see less of his face, but by the time we see Kutcher clean shaven, we have come to accept Kutcher as Jobs.

It is hard to know how much of the movie is historically accurate.  It feels somewhat incomplete, because the movie only covers Jobs life up to the point where he returned to Apple.  This make the film feel like it didn't quite live up to its full potential, like maybe the film didn't have enough budget to do a full biography.

Maybe this is why Jobs has only a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I find very little wrong with the movie.  It does a good job of telling the early story of Apple, which is exciting and interesting, but then the film kind of flatlines as it covers Jobs slow fall from grace at Apple.  This is followed by a  jarring jump to his return to Apple, and then shortly thereafter the film ends making it feel truncated.

Still, the movie does entertain, and I love the performance by Ashton Kutcher.  This movie demonstrates that he is much more than just a television actor.

Rating:  B 

Although the 2015 movie Steve Jobs is highly fictionalized, it is a much more powerfully acted portrayal of the man and the people around him.  I think that both movies are worth seeing.