That’s where Funny or Die comes in. This past April they
released their first feature length film online, iSteve, which is a very fictionalized unauthorized biography of the
late Steve Jobs.
iSteve follows the
adventures of young visionary programmer Steve Jobs (Justin Long) and his
protégé Steve Wozniak (Jorge Garcia), founders of the Apple computer company.
The story is told with the tried and true cliché of
flashbacks, with Justin Long playing an older Steve Jobs telling the audience
his life story as if it were a keynote presentation. I really enjoyed that part
of the storytelling, as it played up to the public image of the man as we all
remember him. Unfortunately most everything else is a hackneyed mess.
Just like the company this is making fun of, I was not
completely sold on this film from the start. It looks extremely cheap and as if
it was produced in the space of a week. Actually it resembles a feature length
sketch that would be feature on the Funny or Die website; a sketch that was
stretched well beyond what would constitute something watchable. If it were a
45 minute short film I think it would have worked better. Instead it’s a
marginally funny comedy that outstays its welcome long before the end credits
roll.
I do think that Justin Long (Galaxy Quest, Drag Me To Hell,
Jeepers Creepers) is fantastic as
Steve Jobs. This guy is a natural comedic actor and proves it whenever the
material he’s working with here goes off the rails or becomes mundane. The fact
that he was in all those Mac vs. PC commercials makes his involvement all the
funnier. Jorge Garcia (Lost) is funny
as well as the clingy Wozniak. He doesn’t have much to do other than stand in
the corner and look longingly at the lead, but he makes the most of the
screentime he’s given. Michaela Watkins (Trophy
Wife) gets a few moments of pure comedy gold as well.
The acting isn’t the problem with iSteve. It’s the stinker script and boring direction by Ryan
Perez, a vet of many Funny or Die videos. He seems to think the material he
came up with is absolutely hilarious when in reality it’s only kinda sorta
funny. Sure there is some good stuff here, like an awesome meta moment when
Jobs sees Jeepers Creepers on TV and
proclaims that he must have Justin Long be the face of the company. Outside of
that there are nothing but odd montages, painfully unfunny stretches of nothing
and awkward internet style humor (the kind of stuff that’s funny for about 10
seconds). He has no real style and didn’t attempt to broaden his visuals for
the bigger budget. Like I said earlier, this looks extremely cheap and thrown
together, and the script feels the same.
What was the point of that scene where Jobs turns out to be
a robot? I didn’t find it funny, only a distraction because it felt like
padding to make the movie a minute or so longer. The whole movie is like that.
It’s sad because this could have been a wildly entertaining film if someone else
were behind it.
The script does touch on all the major moments of Jobs’
life, from making the first Apple computer in his garage to being ousted from
the company by greedy shareholders to his mammoth comeback as the visionary we
all know him as today. Some of it works, some doesn’t. Some parts are played
for laughs and some are treated too seriously for a movie being advertised as a
straight up comedy.
I have to bring up the fact that the make-up used on Justin
Long to portray the older Steve Jobs is a disaster. He looks like a drag king.
I’m told that this is a better movie than the Ashton Kutcher
starring Jobs, which came out earlier
this year. Once I saw that Kutcher was in that one I steered clear. This is
good as an alternative choice to that, but even then it’s not all that good
itself. It’s worth a watch on Netflix streaming, which is how I watched it. But
I’ll never watch it again.
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