If you were expecting “Jobs” to be a big box office hit, you were wrong.

It is the first of two movies to portray the life and accomplishments of Steve Jobs — the second to be written and directed by Syracuse University alumnus Aaron Sorkin — but “Jobs” did not set the bar very high.

The film begins in 2001 with the announcement of the first iPod. Then it jumps back in time to when Jobs attended Reed College in Oregon, and tells his story up through his return to Apple in 1996. Then the progression stops.

The movie never works its way back to where it started — 2001 — and it’s hard not to notice it. It was jarring, since a lot of viewers probably expected the film to end with Jobs’ death in 2011, which would have made the movie feel more complete. The audience would have been able to relate to the life of Jobs a little more if it had covered a more recent time period.

Instead, the film shows the early life of a brilliant college dropout working his way through life’s struggles to become a technology mastermind.

The film moves through scenes and different situations too quickly, making the story a bit difficult to piece together. That, and the fact that all of the scenes aren’t completely tied together, only intensifies the feeling of incompleteness.

Since the story of Jobs’ life is portrayed sporadically, there wasn’t a lot of room for character development.

For example, early in the movie, Jobs tells his pregnant girlfriend that he is not the father of her child. Later, though, he proceeds to name a computer after her while at the same time working with a lawyer to give up his paternal rights. This complex situation is never explained, leaving the audience confused and the character of Jobs’ girlfriend undeveloped.

But then even more uncertainty is added near the end of the film, when Jobs is seen living with a woman who the audience assumes is his ex-girlfriend and mother of his now-grown child — who is also seen lying on the couch. The viewer is never really certain of the broken family’s storyline.

And since no scene gets explained to the point where you start to care about what’s happening, “Jobs” could have used a unifying storyline.

Although omissions can be expected in any sort of bio-flick, “Jobs” had too many. The only audience members that would have been able to completely understand what was happening would be the ones who had an abundance of background knowledge on Jobs’ early life — which most people don’t have, usually associating Jobs’ name with iPhones and Macs.

What helped the film’s reputation tremendously, however, was having Ashton Kutcher as the lead actor. He looked remarkably similar to Jobs in his earlier years, and was able to make his speeches sound just as empowering as Jobs did. Even though the movie was not as big of a hit as producers would have liked, it helped prove that Kutcher is capable of playing serious roles, as opposed to his usual comedic stints in TV series “That ’70s Show” and “Two and a Half Men.”

Another helpful element to the movie was the setting. It seemed as if it really was filmed in the 1970s.

Judging by the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic reviews, a majority of people seems to still be disappointed, despite these few redeeming qualities — especially those who felt that important figures within the Apple were left out of the movie or portrayed incorrectly.

As a whole, “Jobs” lacked entertainment and depth, as it barely scratched the surface of a very complex man’s life. With someone as powerful and influential as Jobs — who played a part in our everyday tech lives — many hope that Aaron Sorkin’s portrayal of the Apple creator will be more fulfilling.

Published on September 11, 2013 at 12:31 am

Contact Brittany: baruss01@syr.edu