Film Review - Steve Jobs (2016)

Steve Jobs is written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle and concerns 3 launches of products the late Apple co-founder devised: The Macintosh in 1984, the Next in 1988 and the iMac in 1998, Michael Fassbender plays Steve Jobs and it shows him dealing with his assistant (Kate Winslet), his co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) as well as his estranged wife and daughter Lisa.

Hmmm, yeah I was not a big fan of this one and the reason I feel this way is Sorkin's script, it just constantly gets dour and limp and almost every scene has its characters fighting or arguing or shouting at each other and after a while it just becomes tiresome and that wasn't the case in Sorkin's earlier script The Social Network, in that film you saw Mark Zuckerburg be the genius that some people see him has and here you don't get to see that with Steve and given that so many people own Macs, iPhones, iPads and the iWatch I wanted to see more of that visionary figure that some paint him has.

It also doesn't help having a director like Boyle whose style of filmmaking is very different to David Finchers (who directed the Social Network and was in line to direct this film before the fallout at Sony happened) and Fincher and Sorkin as a pair went together like Mash and Peas do but here it feels like Fish and Mash going together and they just don't fit and as a result your seeing this almost larger than life directing butting heads with a cold and stoic screenplay/writer and as a result I just found myself unengaged by it all.

It also doesn't help that the performances felt very limp at times as well, Fassbender is one of the best actors working today but this is not one of his best performances, don't get me wrong he's good but he's been so much better in other films (Prometheus was saved because of him), Winslet does the whole thing in a European accent and she wasn't as good as she was in the Dressmaker while Rogen and Jeff Daniels barely register in their roles and this again makes the film watching feel worse for you as these people are talented and they've proven that to you in the past but here they all feel wasted in their roles.

So that was Steve Jobs, a film that saddens me to say is a genuine turkey and I just cannot recommend it, watch the Social Network instead, 1 out of 5.