Review Roundup: Ashton Kutcher Stars in jOBS

jOBS, the biopic starring Ashton Kutcher as computer wiz Steve Jobs and Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak hits theaters today, August 16th.

Directed by Joshua Michael Stern, written by Matthew Whitely, shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Russell Carpenter and produced by Mark Hulme, jOBS details the major moments and defining characters that influenced Steve Jobs on a daily basis from 1971 through 2000.

jOBS plunges into the depths of his character, creating an intense dialogue-driven story that is as much a sweeping epic as it is an immensely personal portrait of SteveJobs' life. The filmmakers were granted unprecedented access during shooting to the historic garage in Palo Alto, that served as the birthplace to Apple Inc.

Let's see what the critics have to say:

Manhola Dargis, New York Times: It would drive Steve Jobs nuts to know that the new movie about his life has all the sex appeal of a PowerPoint presentation...movie is inevitably unsatisfying, but never more so when the figure at the center remains as opaque as Jobs does here.

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: 'Jobs' feels curiously out of touch with its subject, both as a man and regarding his impact. There was a time when the slack storytelling, stock characterizations and general by-the-numbers feeling of the film could be put into perspective by saying it seemed like a TV biopic. But even TV movies are done with more verve than this these days.

R. Kurt Osenlund, Slant Magazine: Jobs is excruciating, failing to entertain and all but pissing on its subject's grave.. [an] abysmal fact-based film, whose makers seem enamored with the concept of a Steve Jobs movie, but haven't anything close to the chops that are needed to pull it off.

Lou Lumenick, the New York Post: His performance, like the movie, is all surface...depiction of Apple's early years comes dangerously close to an infomercial... Jobs amounts to, at best, a Cliffs Notes version of the man's early life. If you want the real story, you'll have to read Walter Isaacson's fascinating 2011 biography, which would make a much better film than this.

Claudia Puig, USA Today: One thing it doesn't do is offer a revealing look at the mercurial entrepreneur...The movie that bears his name settles on a blandly superficial treatment of a deeply complex man.

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: There's a void inside the man that Kutcher never manages to fill...The film is so thick with Jobs' career highlights and lowlights that there's little room for insights. What made this famously private man tick?

Owen Glieberman, Entertainment Weekly: shrewd, unsweetened performance...[I was] surprised and frequently compelled by what a starkly honest portrait it is...even as Jobs sticks to the facts of Jobs' life, the movie gets a little too caught up in his legend.

Michael Phillips, The Chicago Tribune: Genius, according to Kutcher's bland performance, is a matter of pursing your lips, pausing, speaking deliberately and arrogantly and reading every line as if you already know the retort, because you are Steve Jobs and therefore an omniscient god

Peter Travers, Rollling Stone: Kutcher nails the genius and narcissism. It's a quietly dazzling performance...Jobs is a one-man show that needed to go for broke and doesn't.

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Tasked with playing one of the most complicated and accomplished visionaries of our time, and [Kutcher is] in over his head. Kutcher's just not the right OS to make this movie hum.

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