Steve Jobs as a grouch? Muddled story. Strong performance by Michael Fsssbender

Rating: 5/10 (27 October 2015)

A man has an idea: everyone on the planet can have his or her own personal computer or PC. The PC would be totally interactive and could be taken anywhere; it would be ascetically attractive and be both a toy and and decorative object. Yes, a great idea. In this movie, this man's idea gets buried inside a mountain of techno-babble and interminable griping that obscures the story to the point that it loses its cohesiveness. The story starts in the middle of something and ends in the middle of something. The man withe the idea is, of course, Steve Jobs. He is portrayed by Michael Fassbender whose physical similarity to Jobs is uncanny. His performance is powerful and dominates the movie. Unfortunately the same adjective, powerful, cannot be applied to the movie itself. More apt would be the adjectives choppy and confusing. If one is not already familiar with the story of Steve Jobs, this movie will make no sense. Just a story of two guys at odds with each other over whose should get credit for a computer. That does raise an interesting question: who's more important - the creator of a product or the person who sells it? This leads to another question: Who cares? In this movie Steve Jobs is depicted as supercilious, pushy, arrogant, argumentative and self-centered. Not exactly the most attractive qualities to show on the screen. Who wants to watch a movie about a grouchy guy? To balance this, the movie includes a stock character, the faithful assistant, played by Kate Winslet as Ms Hoffman. But even she has her run-ins with the moody Jobs. He gets along with no one. This raises yet another question: if Jobs is so prissy and nasty, then how is it that he managed to be such a huge success in an industry that required the ability to mobilize highly educated and intellectually gifted people and gain their cooperation? Jobs must have been doing something right.