Steve Jobs 2015

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: The Full Sorkin Treatment has electrified a well-trod subject. But it also smothers it in artifice. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Michael Fassbender will be in every best actor conversation from now until Oscar night (and deservedly so) for his mesmerizing turn as the legendary and legendarily difficult visionary Jobs. Read more

Alex Pappademas, Grantland: Fassbender looks enough like Jobs that it's not distracting, and he finds a voice for the character. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: I came away with the feeling that the filmmakers were practically implying that his early death at 56 was some kind of karmic payback. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: It's a cliche to say that Apple changed the world, but how and why did that happen? "Steve Jobs" is robust and entertaining, but the answer it provides is incomplete. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Steve Jobs and all of the characters around him fail to come to life in any absorbing fashion. They're not real people; they're all hashtags. Read more

Isaac Guzman, TIME Magazine: What's most difficult about Sorkin's intricate fantasy is not acknowledging Jobs' darkness, but setting aside all hope of seeing the real man who inspired it. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: An enthralling performance by Michael Fassbender fuels this brilliant, infuriating and richly unconventional take on the life of an American visionary. Read more

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club: The tension between Boyle's restless energy and Sorkin's tendency to run in place drives the movie. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The acting is superb, no easy feat when trying to recite Sorkin's words while walking down seemingly endless hallways. Fassbender doesn't look a thing like Jobs and it doesn't matter a bit. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It rings emotionally and dramatically false, too at variance with the actual outsized talents and flaws of this man as they've been obsessively catalogued elsewhere. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: As the title character, Michael Fassbender gets the SOB part down just fine, but there's little evidence of the personal magnetism that enabled Jobs to bend so many people to his will. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The movie, a formidable technical and design achievement, has everything going for it except a sense of Jobs' inner life. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: As scathingly played by Fassbender, Jobs looks almost as sleek and perfected as one of his computers. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Still, Steve Jobs doesn't dig much beyond the surface of the man in the title. Anyone who wants a fuller story, free from the heavy hand of Sorkin, should seek out Alex Gibney's documentary from earlier this year, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: As sharp and slick as Steve Jobs is, it ends up feeling more interested in entertainment than enlightenment. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Racing in high gear from start to finish, Danny Boyle's electric direction temperamentally complements Sorkin's highly theatrical three-act study, which might one day be fascinating to experience in a staged setting. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: A smart, hugely entertaining film that all but bristles with crackling creative energy. Read more

Tony Hicks, San Jose Mercury News: Is "Steve Jobs" the final say on Steve Jobs? That's hard to say. But like its subject, it should remain relevant for years to come. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Sorkin's relentless chatter starts to weigh on you: Steve Jobs feels artificial and conceptualized when it should be building to a crescendo. Read more

Jacob Silverman, The New Republic: Capably shot, well acted (notwithstanding Kate Winslet's shape-shifting accent), its score propulsive, if a little too insistent, it's a finely crafted piece of work. But as a film, I found it nearly insufferable. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: A whirlwind tour through the computer age with a flawed human at its center. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: What Sorkin and Boyle have to offer is not a warts-and-all portrait but the suggestion that there is something heroic about a wart. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Can you be a nice guy, and a great man? Steve Jobs is the case in point, and "Steve Jobs" says no. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: The film feels so electric while you're watching, it's hard to believe that after two hours, it doesn't even get to the iPod, let alone the iPhone. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: It is a formally audacious, intellectually energized entertainment, a powerful challenge to the lazy conventions of Hollywood storytelling and a feast for connoisseurs of contemporary screen acting. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The acting is unarguably, uniformly strong. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The dialogue crackles with wit, anger, and passion. By matching Sorkin's words with Boyle's style and Fassbender's talent, Steve Jobs has hit the trifecta. Read more

Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: The energy is relentless and the actors all more than meet the challenge of not only keeping up with Sorkin's trademark, rat-a-tat patter but also making it sing. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Written, directed and acted to perfection, and so fresh and startling in conception and execution that it leaves you awed. Fassbender rips through the role of the volcanic Jobs. Is he really that good? Hell, yeah. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: This is simultaneously Sorkin's most satisfying movie script and Boyle's most graceful work as a director. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: What raises Steve Jobs way above the level of most biopics is the totality of Fassbender's immersion into the character. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Boyle films the proceedings on a slightly grainy stock that gives the movie just the hint of a documentary. There's propulsion and energy. He takes Sorkin's script and pumps it with amphetamines. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: It's all too neatly staged to make for dynamic cinema, even if the dialogue does crackle with a delicious nastiness. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Like Jobs' own legendary "reality distortion field," his near-mystical ability to convince anyone of almost anything, the film lifts us past sheer realism to higher truth. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: As original and risk-taking as its subject, "Steve Jobs" will make you think differently about an American icon. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: A redemptive fable at once artful, elegant, and clean. But by stripping out any and all complications, the movie denies itself the opportunity for nuance and puts a ceiling on its own ambition. Read more

Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail: Thanks to Fassbender's revelatory performance, Jobs comes across as a captivating monster, a dictator in a black turtleneck who is impossible to ignore. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It entertains and enlightens, and it's bang on in showing how great ideas are born not through compromise but through vision and determination. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Feels like a series of beautifully and meticulously crafted tiles in a half-finished mosaic; you can admire the pieces but still come away feeling like you've been deprived of the whole. Read more

Sasha Stone, TheWrap: It's a high wire act that might leave some feeling left behind. Somehow, though, Boyle pulls it off not by backing off the speechifying but by leaning into it and allowing it to sing. Read more

David Ehrlich, Time Out: Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who's written about America's Great Flawed Men with such fire and hyperarticulate pathos that he's threatened to become one himself, outdoes his work on The Social Network with an even sharper and more savage script. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: Steve Jobs the man was complicated - and often infuriating to family, friends and colleagues at Apple Inc., the computer company he co-founded. Steve Jobs the film is also complicated -- and consistently thrilling. Read more

Brian Truitt, USA Today: Steve Jobs is a fascinating study of a man, explaining who he was but never making a judgment about who he is. The movie lets audiences compute that for themselves. Read more

Nick Schager, Village Voice: This is a swift and searing attempt to pull back the curtain on Jobs and, in the process, investigate the relationship between the myth and the man. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: With such a tetchy, self-absorbed control freak at its center, it's difficult to explain just why "Steve Jobs" is as entertaining, even pleasurable, as it is. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: In many ways the film reflects its hero's brilliance. It's a scintillating construction, though one that sometimes feels like a product launch in its own right. Read more