The independent biopic Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher in the title role of Apple’s mercurial co-founder, is now available for sale on DVD and digital formats in stores and online, including Apple’s own iTunes. The film, the first full-length theatrical movie to profile Jobs following his death in October 2011, received mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike, but was notable for Kutcher’s strong resemblance to Jobs.
The film, which is also available from Amazon for rent or sale, covered Jobs’ life from just before he and Steve Wozniak founded the computer firm to the introduction of the iPod in 2001, which went on to help redefine the company as more than just a personal computer and software maker. Critics and Jobs’ fans tended to be harder on the film than the general public; Rotten Tomatoes has a critic ranking of 26 percent and an audience ranking of 43 percent.
Both tended to judge Kutcher’s performance as above-average for the actor, in part due to the obvious admiration Kutcher had for Jobs in real life (apart from his at times uncanny physical resemblance). Overall, however, the film was seen to have been let down by its budget, its tendency to truncate and amalgamate highlights rather than get in-depth, and its focus on Apple the business rather than Steve Jobs, the man. As with the earlier Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs’ accomplishments and methods tended to overshadow any insight into how he became the often-emotional and sometimes-cruel genius and visionary that brought out the best in so many others and was responsible for many of the core inventions of 21st-century life.
