A Symphony of Yelling and Arguing

Rating: 4/10 (19 June 2016)

Be prepared to listen to 2 hours of just constant yelling and arguing. If you have no idea who Steve Jobs, Woz, or know about PC/MAC, this is NOT the film to watch first.
I highly recommend Pirates of Silicon Valley (it's a TNT original TV movie first, which is best and entertaining film about Steve Jobs/Bill Gates by far) or even Ashton Kutcher's version "Jobs" as a MUCH MORE FRIENDLY starter.
This film dives you straight to the "warzone" with just constant arguing. It is NOT a feel good watching experience. In fact, it can add stress to your ears. If you're stressed, this film will just add more stress on top of you. It's just too much.
The whole film basically just always takes place backstage a few minutes before the presentations with all these drama thrown at Steve at the last minute prior to the show -- WHICH IS NOT FACTUAL (except for the beginning scene where the 'Hello' error was coming up) -- but simply done for dramatic effect for the movie. Steve has to deal with his wife, daughter, Woz, John Sculley butting heads with ALL of them right before his show, which is a bit ridiculous setup. The film just gets so claustrophobic taking place backstage the whole movie.
If you were eager or expecting to see how Steve Jobs developed his products or demonstrating it on stage, you will be disappointed because 90% of the film just takes place backstage arguing with different people.
There are no scenes of the actual presentation or building process.
The film mainly focuses on Steve after he's fired from Apple/NeXT days and is also focused more on the relationship with his daughter.
The movie takes an hour of arguing before we finally get an intriguing scene of Michael Fassbender actually begin to look like Steve Jobs with his iconic turtleneck, jeans, and glasses look along with the iMac; I would have preferred, and I'm sure many would have liked, to see moments like this, which is refreshing, than the arguing parts.
Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter for this film, as well as that Facebook movie "The Social Network" is a writer that puts in WAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY too much ramblings in dialogue. You can tell right away who the writer was because nobody puts in so much damn ramblings into the dialogue like Aaron Sorkin. Does he not know the meaning LESS IS MORE??? It's good to have some balance and break between, but this film is just full of long ramblings where it takes you out of it. It makes Steve Jobs more identical to portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg; we get that they're both geniuses, but the screen writing just makes them ramble on forever. It's really unpleasing experience. OK, we get Steve Jobs likes to argue, but there's a lot of ramblings that just drag on and we want to get to the next part already.
I understand the director deliberately used actors that look nothing like the real people. Michael Fassbender looks nothing like Steve, but as an actor, Fassbender always has a powerful presence in films (Yes, he's Magneto). And Seth Rogen looks nothing like Woz, but he was definitely chosen for the goofy light-hearted image; they do capture the overall "image". Fassebender began the film like he was trying to portray Bill Gates more, but ironically, in the second half of the film, when he puts on the glasses and jeans look, he gets more convincing as Steve Jobs (the skinny Steve Jobs when he was getting ill)
Ashton Kutcher really resembles Steve Jobs facially, but I really like Noah Wyle (Pirates of Silicon Valley) as Steve Job. Another actor I think who looks like Noah Wyle is Christian Bale; Bale would play the perfect jerk roles. Fassenbender, as well as other actors in this film, are more of an abstract portrayal.
Again, if you're expecting to see Apple product presentations or the building process or how Steve Jobs got started, etc. this film is not for you.
The film is mainly about the relationship of Steve and his daughter and his behaviors (the Apple products themselves all take a backseat) -- all just taking place backstage before the presentations, which was just done for dramatic effect and NOT factual. The film is just entirely an abstract/metaphorical representation of Steve Jobs (including the look of the actors) - not a direct-copy documentary play- by-play.
There are some moments that make you chuckle, like the hinting of the iPads, but the ending is just a bit anti-climactic.
While 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' is able to show both the brilliant side of Steve Jobs, the dark side, and more of a poor victim against Bill Gates, this film lacks on the brilliance, rather just a complete crazy sociopathic jerk.
There were some memorable arguing, like between Steve and Woz, but honestly, there are so many arguing going on in this film, some just drag on and feel pointless (like with his wife where she keeps nagging him about the 28% - over and over and over again).
The beginning of the film was shot on 16mm with a very grainy look, middle of the film was shot on 35, and the last scenes were shot on digital with a really crisp look.
This movie is basically on the same level as Steven Spielberg's portrayal of Lincoln; if you have no idea who Lincoln was, that movie is not a good starter either, nor did it focus on Lincoln but more on the 13th Amendment (what a boring film that was); like the movie Lincoln, this film also drags on and on with convoluted dialogues and we don't really gain more than what we started with, rather just observing the personality of the character.