'Jobs'

The centerpiece of "Jobs" isn't really Steve Jobs but the portrayal of Steve Jobs by Ashton Kutcher — whose fame heretofore had rested largely on the fact that he was married to Demi Moore. Who would have thought the guy who oozes Hollywood charm and toy-boy insincerity from every invisible pore had it in him to pull this off?

Directed by Joshua Michael Stern ("Swing Vote"), "Jobs" is the first Hollywood-style biopic of the visionary behind the world's most valuable company. There is, however, a sizable amount of birthing pain involved — Stern cautiously plots the climb up the mountain of info and legend surrounding Jobs, perhaps overly so. The story takes no risks and doesn't tell us anything we don't know already.

As an entrepreneur and a founding member of Apple Computers, Jobs was stratospherically brilliant. On a personal level, the man was a huge pain in the lower extremities. By many accounts, among his oft-repeated catchphrases were "You're fired" or "You're out" (which Kutcher duplicates to seeming perfection). When someone was slow on the uptake, good ole Jobs would say things like "You stink!" Think what would have been in store for the world had he been born in the USSR and teamed up with Joseph Stalin. Shudder.