Hugely enjoyable and quite accurate (by most accounts) telling of the rise and ultimate clash of two modern tech titans, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Canadian Martyn Burke deserves great credit for both writing and directing this gem. While made for television, this is better by far than most made-for-theater Hollywood productions. The 70's and 80's music fits especially well; tremendously appropriate songs and soundtrack for the story. And the use of the famous Apple "1984" commercial, compared with the vision of a huge, televised Bill Gates hovering over a humbled Steve Jobs is absolutely brilliant.
The dual narration is brilliant too, using the Steve Wozniak character to narrate the Apple story, while the Steve Ballmer character narrates the Microsoft side of things. Sure, there are major oversimplifications of many characters, and while a Paul Allen character is an active presence here - we learn virtually nothing about him as a person. But so what? As the commentary on the DVD points out, there's an almost Shakespearean feel to much of this. The focus is on the events surrounding the ultimate clash for PC superiority between Apple and Microsoft, and on Jobs himself, to a lesser extent on Gates. With no attempt to fully flesh out the other players (and none needed, in the particular story that's being told/dramatized). A few weakish scenes are included, but not many; virtually every scene adds a dimension to the plot and to the ultimate conclusion. The pace is very good, very strong. Noah Wyle gives a terrific performance as Steve Jobs; Anthony Michael Hall is also excellent as Bill Gates. And the DVD has a brief but interesting and entertaining introduction by Wyle; be sure to view it.
As to any "inaccuracies", from what I can tell those are very, very minor. Those interested may want to check Steve Wozniak's website, a section (in "letters") discusses his take on this movie. In a nutshell, Woz was not consulted for the movie, and was flattered by the way he was portrayed. He seemed to feel the movie was accurate or portrayed accuracies; he mentions a few things such as they weren't allowed to wear the "Alice in Wonderland" costumes home, but changed out of them before leaving the performance - personally I thought it was a nice touch to have them walking home while still in costume. Also there's some obvious dialog added for humorous or dramatic purposes; for example, in one scene the Gates character tries to connect socially with women by complimenting their "bandwidth" and by attempting to imitate John Travolta's disco moves while on rollerskates - funny, almost believable, but not likely strict reality. Or when both Jobs and Gates quote the Picasso line about "...great artists steal", but Gates (unlike Jobs) doesn't really care which artist said it. Minor stuff like that should be treated as artistic/dramatic license, not absolute reality. It's a movie (or docudrama), not a strict documentary, yet still manages to make a great story while still being essentially true to the reality of the events. (By the way, "Insanely Great" was of course an Apple marketing phrase for the Mac, created by Steve Jobs himself; so I'm not meaning to infringe on any copyright there!).
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Rough shape considering the price
The case is damaged and pretty beaten up, and the disc is scratched. I’m hoping it will play al the way through in one of my players, but this was disappointing and far from good condition.
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2007
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Top reviews from other countries
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raumvektorReviewed in Germany on November 7, 2013
Guter Film mit schlechter Synchro
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Jaime D.Reviewed in Spain on August 12, 2016
La única película que merece la pena sobre la historia de Microsoft y Apple
- NIGEL C. GRAHAMReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2020
Birth of the personal computer
