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The Joshua Michael Stern-directed biopic, which first made its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is hitting the big screen this Friday.
Ashton Kutcher stars as Steve Jobs in the film, which details the entrepreneur’s life in the early 1970s to becoming one of the world’s most innovative tech leaders as co-founder and CEO of Apple.
VIDEO: Instagram Releases New ‘Jobs’ Trailer
See what Hollywood critics are saying about Jobs:
The Hollywood Reporter‘s Justin Lowe said the film “is a passably entertaining account of the career of one of the 20th century’s great innovators that breaks no new stylistic ground and hews closely to the public perception of the tech giant.”
Michael O’Sullivan at The Washington Post was quick to note that “Ashton Kutcher is not a disaster in Jobs.” He praised Kutcher’s performance, but mentioned a problem with the film itself, “Jobs confuses the story of Apple, the company, with the story of its guru and guiding force, spending way too much time on backroom personnel dealings than on encounters that might help us understand, on a deep level, the title character.”
Los Angeles’ Times‘ Mark Olsen was less impressed by Kutcher. “Jobs feels curiously out of touch with its subject, both as a man and regarding his impact,” stated Olsen. “There was a time when the slack storytelling, stock characterizations and general by-the-numbers feeling of the film could be put into perspective by saying it seemed like a TV biopic. But even TV movies are done with more verve than this these days.”
VIDEO: Rush Limbaugh’s New BFF: Ashton Kutcher
Huffington Post‘s Marshall Fine was also left unconvinced, explaining how “It would take an actor like Guy Pearce or Sam Rockwell to relay all those complexities of character without describing them verbally. But it’s simply beyond Kutcher’s ability; his go-to facial expression is a smirk that can dissolve into a smile or tears, depending on how hard Kutcher bites his own cheek.”
Sandy Cohen from The Associated Press thought the film might have been better titled as “The History of Apple Computers” and added that “Jobs aims to be the first biopic about tech giant Steve Jobs (Sony’s Aaron Sorkin project is next), but instead of offering insight into the man, it’s a chronology of Apple and the advent of personal computers.”
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