Steve Jobs (15) Three stars

Dir: Danny Boyle With: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen

Runtime: 122 minutes

TO lose weight a body should walk at least 10,000 steps a day, experts say. By that reckoning, Michael Fassbender, who takes the titular role in Danny Boyle’s biopic of the tech billionaire, should now change his name to Mr Skinny Malinky Long Legs Esq.

A marathon of walking, and even more talking, is required to tell Jobs’ story. Since you ask, yes, the screenplay is by Aaron Sorkin, the man who raised striding while gassing to an art form in The West Wing.

Here, Boyle and Sorkin attempt to reinvent the life story genre much as Jobs reimagined computing, with the tale told through various product launches during the early part of Jobs’ career, post Mac, pre iPod. It is a biopic, kids, but not as we know it.

Will you like it, though? Those expecting a picture as shiny, smooth and engaging as one of Mr Jobs’ devices could well be disappointed. This is a 2.0 look at Jobs’ life, compared to Ashton Kutcher’s analogue 2013 biopic, and it will not be to all tastes. Even Mac-heads, a breed rarely out-anoraked, could find themselves feeling swamped by what feels like excessive detail.

The Herald:

Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs

Fassbender wears the black polo neck and rimmed spectacles of Jobs well. There is not much in the way of physical resemblance, but the attitude is there - wired, arrogant, impatient, inspired, firing on all creative and business cylinders. Our first encounter with him takes place in 1984 when he is about to launch the Mac (tall tower version, tiny screen). But there’s a hitch: the tech team cannot get the cute little fella to say “hello”. Jobs flies around like a dervish, refusing to accept “can’t” as an answer.

There is another matter competing for his attention, one which seems of far less importance to him than a technical glitch. His five-year-old daughter, and her mother, are hanging around backstage. They need Jobs - his ex for more child support, his child for support - but he seems to regard them as an annoying administrative detail he wishes his aide Joanna Hoffman (a bespectacled, perpetually harassed-looking Kate Winslet in what is probably another Oscar nomination shoo-in) would handle. Joanna is far too busy, however, being the buffer between the mercurial Jobs, his beleaguered staff, and his business backers, of whom John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) is the most demanding.

The tussle between Jobs the father and Jobs the design genius is by far the most successfully realised thing about Boyle’s picture because it allows for a dramatic clash. This is our chance to see two sides of the same man, the better to get the measure of him. Here is a man who seriously thought a product launch was on a par with the allies winning the Second World War, who likened himself to Caesar surrounded by enemies. An ego as big as his computers were dinky. Not an entirely flattering portrait then.

And not an easy one to decipher, either. Sorkin has scene after scene of Fassbender and Winslet yammering away, and when they’re not doing so, Seth Rogen, playing Steve Wozniak, turns up to fight a battle over a long lost project that only those who would choose Mac as their specialist subject on Mastermind are likely to have heard of. The sameness of the scenes is trying, as is Boyle’s habit of making the dialogue - already chewy and fast-paced - compete with soundtrack. You are either a DJ or a film director,mate; make your mind up.

Inch by inch, layer by layer, Sorkin and Boyle drill down to find the essence of Jobs, the lonely little boy who helped make the modern world and made a billion in the process. Was he, ultimately, a good person? Does it matter? Onwards and onwards march Fassbender and Winslet, revealing another little piece of the puzzle as they go.

One suspects Jobs would have liked Boyle and Sorkin’s portrayal, which leans towards the business side of the story more than the personal. He could scarcely have hoped for more product placement, that’s for sure.