Bill Gates, played by Anthony Michael Hall (the nerd from The Breakfast Club,) is an inspired choice and a near perfect performance. Steve Jobs is also beautifully cast. Jobs is intense and totally unaware and uncaring of his over the top energy.
Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick) is likeable and a voice of reason in a chaotic age – where crazy ideas set forth opportunities for the revolution that will change the future. For nerds to create things amidst 60’s hippie political activism. Practical jokes and the creative process.
The writing about romantic relationships is a bit thin, and drugs are skimmed past. The keys to this story are two iconic characters and their creative rise to prominence and corporate dominance.
The non-believers scurry around with their useless habits and ignorant suits. Bill Gates, as nerd one, writing code with Paul Allen (Josh Hopkins) and stealing the world. Their other friend, (John DiMaggio) turns bald by the end of the film and is a big guy, but a funny bloke and a true barbarian (versus the pirates.)
Jobs and Woz are after different things, but both essentially trying to build something new to get past a state of failure, hunger and a hole in their existence – empty of control or power over their lives.
As this state changes, the power increases, their relationship also changes, and neither of them really know how to deal with the change. It becomes difficult for Steve to see who the enemy is as he gets closer to the tipping point of power.
Fun, passion and creativity fuel this story. It is a story of struggle, of lying to the lawyers and tight old suits, and of rebelling against the ordinary, respectable, blind old men who think they rule the world. And think they know what a good product is, and yet they are blissfully ignorant.
The young Bill Gates is crazy fun, loves getting into trouble and talks like a manipulative, hilarious, carefree lunatic. Getting drunk and joyriding dozers, while Jobs and Woz go to indie conventions and sell ideas to the people on the ground floor.
The revolution is exciting. And the scene where Jobs snubs Bill is great – perhaps signifying the moment when Bill decides to become bigger than Jobs in order to crush him, steal his work, his passion.
Jobs is a jerk, though. Making technology to revolutionise the industry stops being fun when you treat your friends like they’re expendable and you stop liking your work. Woz and Jobs are the stars of this movie. Bill Gates is a wonderful villain.
This is a trashy film, not an art film. It has a different set of values to achieve. It’s not a well-crafted or polished piece of cinema. It’s just a great story and a lot of fun to watch. To see how Bill Gates and his crew will rip off the world.
As Woz and Jobs take over the industry – Woz is overwhelmed and Jobs, the revolutionary, is a bit of an asshole. Sure, he’s a design innovator and tech guru – which isn’t a major part of this film, but a lot of the time, he’s a bit of a flake and not fun to be around.
Essentially this movie gets to the heart of the central conflict between Apple and Microsoft. Bill stole Windows from Jobs. But Jobs stole first, he stole the graphical interface and the mouse from Xerox.
This film puts all of this evildoing in a dramatic context, coloured by dynamic, quirky characters – flawed yes, but not precisely evil. We understand their motivations.
The craziness of Jobs explodes when he plays teams of people against each other, apparently for entertainment. Woz can’t take it anymore. Perhaps, an acid-induced frenzy – where Jobs takes his company and rips it apart to see what happens. His reason seems to have something to do with distancing himself from caring about his people, from caring about anything. Because emotion clouds the mind, caring is impure. It feels like this idea is behind his actions, but is never explicitly explored.
He seeks the perfect purity, but the cost he doesn’t see or feel. The cost is integrity, heart and passion. Even if creativity is the goal, this journey is cursed to destroy itself. The revolution is built on many foundations – not unique, forward-thinking creativity alone.
3.5 stars
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