A docu-drama about the rise of PC through the rivalry between Apple & Microsoft, the movie captures the events of how Apple & Microsoft came to existence and the rivalry that only helped the PC industry boom. Being a die-hard Apple fan who grew up using Windows & switched to Mac an year back, I've been wanting to watch it for quite a time & last night when I did... honestly, I LOVED it.
The movie begins with the making of the 1984 commercial (hailed today as the greatest commercial of all time) & then moves to 1997 Macworld Expo where Steve Jobs having made his return to Apple, announces the company's deal with Microsoft. The movie then flashes back to the earlier days before the invent of Apple, & introduces Steve Wozniak, co- founder of Apple & the real magician behind Apple Computers.. who also is one of the two narrators in the film. The part of Bill Gates is narrated by Steve Ballmer, the current CEO of Microsoft.
The one thing that I simply loved about this movie is the accurate depiction of personalities featured in it. Noah Wyle & Anthony Michael Hall play young Steve Jobs & Bill Gates, respectively to perfection. They look amazingly convincing as their characters, both in looks and personalities. In short, they nailed it. And so was the case of supporting actors like Steve Wozniak, John Sculley, Paul Allen & Steve Ballmer.
The casting has been stunning & the performances by the actors in portraying the figures that changed the world forever, breathtaking. Even the locations & events like student movements of the 70s, Jobs' garage where Apple was born, Wozniak's plane crash, the cluelessness of Xerox about the potential of their own creation, 1984 commercial, Bill Gates working in Apple & then deceiving the company etc were captured quite nicely. But many events are highly inaccurate depictions of what it actually was.
For e.g: Apple was invited by Xerox & were licensed their GUI for exchange of some part in Apple's share. Apple Lisa was a failure & not a successful commercial product. Microsoft never really had a comparable GUI to the 1984 released Macintosh until 1991. Many events were captured accurately but then it happened at different times or in a different place than depicted in the movie to oversimplify history.
One thing I wished this movie had was more of Bill Gates. This is mostly a movie about Jobs' psych & life and is quite hard at him. You get to see much of the way Steve Jobs used to operate in those days as well as the way he used to see things in a spiritual & artistic way, the movie really misses out a lot about Bill Gates. All you get to see is his ruthless business practice. Overall, the movie is not very kind to either Jobs or Gates as it emphasizes their negative qualities more.
Not a completely accurate insight into the history of Apple & Microsoft but definitely worth a watch. After all, the machine on which you are reading this, is the result of either one or both of these revolutionary companies that changed the way we think, work & communicate... in short, changed the way we live... changed the world forever. Apple, Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
参考资料：IMDB