One of the most surprising movie flops of 2015 was Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs: a movie which, miraculously, earned even less for its creators than 2013’s panned Jobs, starring Dude, Where’s My Car‘s Ashton Kutcher.
Now the movie has received another ignominious fate: being singled out by major film critic and former co-host of At the Movies Rex Reed as his pick for no. 1 worst film of the year. Ouch!
Rex’s damning appraisal reads as such:
“If you’re interested in the rags-to-riches story of the late Steve Jobs, the tech nerd who devoted his life to the digital revolution and self-destructed in the process, then stay away from the cold, bloodless and incomprehensible movie with the cut-the-crap-and-get-to-the-point title Steve Jobs.”
While there’s no doubting the box office disaster that Steve Jobs turned out to be, the movie has been one of 2015’s most critically divisive movies — arguably a suitable situation for a film about Jobs, who was notorious for labelling things as either “insanely great” or one of the worst things he’d ever seen.
The movie had stellar reviews when it was first screened for critics, but was met with considerably less positivity when described by people who had known Steve. Recently, the flick picked up four Golden Globe nominations, while it’s also likely to get a few nods at the Oscars.
My personal take? It’s a fun Aaron Sorkin movie — if you pretend it’s about a fictitious guy called “Steve Jobs.” Try and reconcile it with the real guy it’s based on, and it’ll leave you disappointed — or worse. If you haven’t seen it, you can make up your own mind by picking up the movie for yourself on DVD or digital download in February, or by reading the Aaron Sorkin script here.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
13 responses to “Insanely crap: Top critic calls Steve Jobs one of 2015’s worst movies”
This guy must not have watched a lot of movies this year
The problem with Sorkin is that he doesn’t really understand the world of technology. He searched for the human story and found it in Lisa. The problem with Rex Reed is that he has even less understanding of technology. Steve Jobs was “the tech nerd who devoted his life to the digital revolution and self-destructed in the process”? Guess I should have paid closer attention myself. I missed the part where Steve self-destructed.
Well, that iPhone never took off the way people were… waitasecond!
I think you are right.
It was like a movie-like depiction of a person named Steve Jobs. But, I feel we needed much more if we were to witness what that Syrian mind was really like. I think, frankly, the script wasn’t close to up to it.
“Top critic”
Watched it last night i was really disappointed, had potential but I didnt enjoy watching it
I liked it
I personally thought it was an excellent film, and the acting performances were amazing. I really enjoyed it!
I loved the film! By far one of the best films I’ve seen. Steve Jobs is a hard personally to tackle, both Danny and Aaron clearly understand this. But to counter this, they didnt base the movie only on his love for the computing industry and innovation, but they try to show how his personality changes. The way he acts speaks a million words and its perfectly executed in the film. How, is through Lisa and his actions towards her. She is the centre, she stands for the audience, she stands for the computing industry, she represents a lot more than just his daughter in the film. Throughout the film he changes, the way he acts and talks and moves about, he becomes more mature not only as a figure head and overall business man, but as a human being. Its very smartly done and i couldn’t wish for anything more.
Who the hell wears NB. Stiff soled pos.
I loved this movie. It was not confusing in the slightest. It told a very compelling story that stayed with me long after. This is a sign of a great movie IMO
Rex Reed a top critic? I didn’t even know Rex Reed was still ALIVE.
Even if the movie itself was disappointing Michael Fassbender is being tipped for best actor at the Oscars for this role!