Steve Jobs

The Steve Jobs that we meet in Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs is a master of prioritizing the package over the product, of putting grand ideas over gritty details, and this sleek biopic subscribes to that same hollow ethic. It's all beautifully designed and arranged, with a hyper-literate Aaron Sorkin script, a great cast and impeccable technical elements from top to bottom, but the end result feels shiny and obsolete, closer to the Cube than the iMac. Michael Fassbender oozes narcissistic charm as Jobs, giving a strong performance without ever fully inhabiting the character, and he's given excellent support by Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg and Seth Rogen. Sorkin structures the film like a three-act play, showing us the contentious lead-ups to a few of Jobs' most famous product launches, but the formula curdles in the final third, as Sorkin and Boyle strain to make Jobs seem like a swell guy. D.B.