Review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Travis Kalanick in 'Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,' Showtime’s adaptation of the Mike Isaac book about the ridesharing company
Casting the inherently likable Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the insurmountably loathsome Travis Kalanick was a masterstroke of “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” and one that conforms to the series’ paradoxical purpose: portraying Uber itself as one of the more wildly successful—and wildly unpopular—business phenomena of the Silicon Valley era.
With its first seven episodes based on the Mike Isaac book of the same name “Super Pumped” is intended as a series of season-long stories, the second of which, predictably enough, will be about Facebook . The objective, according to Showtime, is to explore companies and moments that “rocked the business world to its core and changed culture.” Uber, which has grown from a ride-hailing app to a many-tentacled service provider, certainly qualifies.