Woz Wouldn't Recommend 'Jobs'
Ashton Kutcher's take on Steve Jobs—titled Jobs—has its problems, and now one of the films' real-life subjects, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, is giving it a (sort of) thumbs down.
.Ashton Kutcher's take on Steve Jobs—titled Jobs—has its problems, and now one of the films' real-life subjects, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, is giving it a (sort of) thumbs down. In a terse review for Gizmodo, Wozniak writes that he thought "acting throughout was good" and "was attentive and entertained but not greatly enough to recommend the movie."
For a large chunk of the review—though we really hesitate to call it that—Woz awkwardly takes Kutcher to task for what he calls "some disingenuous and wrong statements." This is not the first time he's had issues with the film: shortly after an early clip was released, Wozniak explained at Gizmodo how he found it inaccurate. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Kutcher attributed Wozniak's criticism to the fact that he is a paid consultant on Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography. " Steve Wozniak is being paid by another company to support their Steve Jobs film," Kutcher said. "It’s personal for him, but it’s also business. We have to keep that in mind. He was also extremely unavailable to us when producing this film."
Back in January, Hillary Busis at Entertainment Weekly wrote that Wozniak was "contracted exclusively" to work with Sorkin, Wozniak wrote in Gizmodo today that Kutcher's statements were "examples of Ashton still being in character. Either film would have paid me to consult, but the Jobs one already had a script written. I can't take that creative leadership from someone else. And I was turned off by the Jobs script. But I still hoped for a great movie." Wozniak concludes:
I felt bad for many people I know well who were portrayed wrongly in their interactions with Jobs and the company. The movie ends pretty much where the great Jobs finally found product success (the iPod) and changed so many of our lives. I'm grateful to Steve for his excellence in the i-era, and his contribution to my own life of enjoying great products, but this movie portrays him having had those skills in earlier times.
Interestingly enough, though Woz may want to correct the record—explaining how generous he was to those that were cast aside by Apple—critics have praised Josh Gad's portrayal of him. At The Wrap, Alonso Duralde wrote that the movie "really belongs to Gad, whose Wozniak is the brainy, vulnerable and human heart of the film."