'The Imitation Game' (Bletchley Park) 2014

Ruu

Link to IMDB

Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing. Excited to see how this goes, learning a little about this era at the moment in a class I am taking.

Bletchley Park and the code breakers

Bletchley Park is considered as home of the codebreakers. During the Second World War the mansion and surroundings served as top secret location for the Government Code and Cipher School, later called GCHQ.

More than 10,000 people were involved in the operation to break into the various German Enigma-encoded messages, and it is believed that their combined effort helped shorten the war by two years and save thousands of lives.

Alan Turing and Enigma

One of the most prominent code breakers at Bletchley Park was Alan Turing, whose life is at the center of the film The Imitation Game.

The pioneer of modern-day computing is credited with cracking the German Naval Enigma code.

New York based production company Black Bear Pictures, behind the film, describes the plot as a nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team at Bletchley Park during the darkest days of World War II.

Turing’s contributions and genius were the eventual victim of an unenlightened British Establishment, when he was prosecuted and charged for his homosexuality in 1952 and two years later committed suicide, but his work and legacy live on.

Benedict Cumberbatch is currently one of the most in-demand actors world-wide. The release of the Fifth Estate, in which he portrays Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange is due in cinemas on October 11.

In the upcoming months more films starring the actor will hit theatres across the country, amongst which are The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 12 Years a Slave, short film Little Favour and August: Osage County. Benedict will also be back on British TV as the iconic consulting detective Sherlock Holmes later this year.

The Imitation Game will be released in 2014.

Fox_In_Socks

Excellent, I've always been interested in Bletchley Park for a few years now after reading a really good novel that mentioned it.

Ruu

Have you seen the mini-series Bletchley Circle (ITV, UTV), Fox? I am waiting for the DVD.

Fox_In_Socks

No, I haven't...it passed me by, having no TV. I must keep an eye out for the DVD.

Maire2009

Few pictures coming out from set:







Bloody Keira Knightly and her jaw in the film :rolleyes:

JP Liz V1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM

Playing at Cork Film Festival this weekend and on general release here next weekend and by all accounts Cumberbatch is in top form and an early Oscar contender for best actor

D'Agger

Went to this last night in the Cork Opera house as part of the film festival and I was thoroughly entertained to say the least.

Well shot, good story and marvellous performances - notably & somewhat obviously - by Cumberbatch who absolutely shines as Turing, the awkward, flawed genius. I wondered leaving last night as per whether he'll get an Oscar nomination and I really hope he does - I haven't seen somebody act with their eyes / facial expressions this much in some time and it would be his just reward to be nominated.

The supporting cast of Knightly, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Alan Leech (who I'm only now realising is the actor who showed great promis in RTEs 'Love is the Drug') & my particular favourite - Mark Strong, gave fantastic performances that interacted brilliantly with Cumberbatchs Turing.

I think more could have been made about his treatment, despite it being a difficult subject but it was covered well enough. I will say this however, as a person who works in IT - the line shown at the end of the film about the Royal pardon Turing received in 2013 was shy one word - 'Finally' - his genius went too long unappreciated and this makes the brilliance of this film all the more satisfying for me.

Fantastic watch - would highly recommend

errlloyd

Went to see this at midday today because I was fairly keen. It was excellent. There are a number of big questions and issues dealt with. cumberbatch was class.

If you know the history of enigma you'll love seeing it brought to life, if you don't you're in for an absolute eye opener in a dramatic story stranger than fiction at times

efb

Bloody Brilliant. Cumberbatch was excellent. I didn't think they glossed over the gay question at all. Pleasantly surprised with Knightly's performance too.

cloud493

It was good, much sadder than I expected.

johnny_ultimate

As a fundamentalist when it comes to the belief that almost every film benefits from a theatrical screen, I wouldn't say this about many motion pictures: I couldn't shake the vibe that The Imitation Game would have worked better on a small screen.

There was a very 'BBC miniseries' mood about the whole thing - thanks in no small part to the uninspiring, perfunctory cinematography, the iffy CGI and a 'stagey' feel due to the limited amount of locations and dialogue-heavy drama. The script and Morten Tyldum's direction are nothing to write home about either. Editing between the three different time periods felt way too obvious and neat, repeatedly underling the obvious. The wartime inserts were both redundant and lazy. The script generally had a terrible habit of overemphasising its points (it also boasts a comically blunt 'after the film...' text epilogue).

I loop back to that first point - for all its big names, widescreen aspect ratio and historical recreations, there was something decidedly 'uncinematic' about The Imitation Game. The story and characters are fascinating at times, but that's down to history rather than anything the film does well (although the actual

'cracking the code'

sequence boasts an energy sorely lacking elsewhere, although again feels like an over obvious, unconvincing way of actually telling the story).

The performances are uniformly good, because of course they are. Its the one thing that can almost always be relied on in this sort of middling prestige fare. Cumberbatch inhabits the character of Turing well, and Knightley turns in a surprisingly decent performance even if her character is cursed with some dreadful dialogue (although she's not alone in that respect - the script is littered with clichés and unconvincing motivational slogans). None of the performances are truly remarkable, but they are skillful and engaging.

The film's flaws are amplified when compared with another recent historical film about a real-life eccentric genius. Mr Turner defies expectations and biopic norms with a less rigid structure that leads to a rich, dynamic and organic portrait of a great man. It also boasts captivating, sumptuous and - yup - cinematic imagery throughout. Turing and Turner were very different people with very different stories, but the comparison between the films is an interesting one.

The Imitation Game isn't awful, and ticks over without any offense being caused (it's careful to approach its darker subject matter with kid gloves, incidentally). Above all, though, I was left wondering if the big screen was the right medium for this story - perhaps from another director, but under Morten Tyldum it comes off as curiously limp.

Cantremember

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

As a fundamentalist when it comes to the belief that almost every film benefits from a theatrical screen, I wouldn't say this about many motion pictures: I couldn't shake the vibe that The Imitation Game would have worked better on a small screen.

There was a very 'BBC miniseries' mood about the whole thing - thanks in no small part to the uninspiring, perfunctory cinematography, the iffy CGI and a 'stagey' feel due to the limited amount of locations and dialogue-heavy drama. The script and Morten Tyldum's direction are nothing to write home about either. Editing between the three different time periods felt way too obvious and neat, repeatedly underling the obvious. The wartime inserts were both redundant and lazy. The script generally had a terrible habit of overemphasising its points (it also boasts a comically blunt 'after the film...' text epilogue).

I loop back to that first point - for all its big names, widescreen aspect ratio and historical recreations, there was something decidedly 'uncinematic' about The Imitation Game. The story and characters are fascinating at times, but that's down to history rather than anything the film does well (although the actual

'cracking the code'

sequence boasts an energy sorely lacking elsewhere, although again feels like an over obvious, unconvincing way of actually telling the story).

The performances are uniformly good, because of course they are. Its the one thing that can almost always be relied on in this sort of middling prestige fare. Cumberbatch inhabits the character of Turing well, and Knightley turns in a surprisingly decent performance even if her character is cursed with some dreadful dialogue (although she's not alone in that respect - the script is littered with clichés and unconvincing motivational slogans). None of the performances are truly remarkable, but they are skillful and engaging.

The film's flaws are amplified when compared with another recent historical film about a real-life eccentric genius. Mr Turner defies expectations and biopic norms with a less rigid structure that leads to a rich, dynamic and organic portrait of a great man. It also boasts captivating, sumptuous and - yup - cinematic imagery throughout. Turing and Turner were very different people with very different stories, but the comparison between the films is an interesting one.

The Imitation Game isn't awful, and ticks over without any offense being caused (it's careful to approach its darker subject matter with kid gloves, incidentally). Above all, though, I was left wondering if the big screen was the right medium for this story - perhaps from another director, but under Morten Tyldum it comes off as curiously limp.

There's a lot I agree with there. Overall I found it terribly sad but not sad enough. There was a sense of glossing over the ruination of a man's life and while the after film text was blunt there was nothing comical about the lives ruined by prejudice fuelled by revelations from Middle Eastern gods.
Inevitably there's a choice to be made in filming but I'm left with a sense of a very good movie that could have been great. I agree with Johnny that there is a sense of cliche about it. All that said I was left with a sense of a great man deeply wronged and a sense of gratitude that such a man lived and used his immense talents to save those who ruined him. Cumberbatch does a very good job: I don't know what the Oscar competition is but for making the life and hidden life of a tormented genius accessible even in such a flawed movie, he gets my vote.

cloud493

One tiny thing, didn't ruin the film mind, I won't spoiler it since its a fairly well known story

- just that, we already know the ending to the story, Turing will solve enigma, yippee. That, and Benedict cumberbatch's portrayal made turing very sympathetic, even more so than his sherlock character. Meanwhile his team mates and his commander intially at least, look like a load of intolerant arseholes who just don't understand him, therefore weren't very sympathetic. Even the scene where

the brother of one of the team is on the ship that going to be sunk and they cant tell anyone, because we know Turing is right, and Cumberbatch portrays him so well, he's much more sympathetic.

Cyclingtourist

I went to see this movie out of a kind of morbid curiosity having read the reviews. I know a reasonable amount about the subject of Bletchley Park and Alan Turing and I'd seen the 1996 TV adaption of the 1986 biographical play 'Breaking the Code: Biography of Alan Turing' which is excellent with Derek Jacobi playing Turing and a brilliant cameo performance from Harold Pinter as a suave senior intelligence officer.

This movie, while the acting is faultless, I found so ridiculous in its script, plot and character portrayal that at times I was squirming in my seat. The construct of a 'Famous Five' group of brilliant minds battling against military idiocy with only the hand of the unseen Winston Churchill to assist them in their quest to save the world and then having achieved their goal to have such ownership of the fruit as to be allowed decide on its dissemination is totally laughable. I was left wondering whether this movie was meant for an audience of full adults or perhaps aimed more at 'young adults'.

If you want a drama/fictionalised portrayal of Turing that is both moving and thought provoking then watch Breaking the Code in full on YouTube.

efb

Cyclingtourist wrote: »

I went to see this movie out a kind of morbid curiosity having read the reviews. I know a reasonable amount about the subject of Bletchley Park and Alan Turing and I'd seen the 1996 TV adaption of the 1986 biographical play 'Breaking the Code: Biography of Alan Turing' which is excellent with Derek Jacobi playing Turing and a brilliant cameo performance from Harold Pinter as a suave senior intelligence officer.

This movie, while the acting is faultless, I found so ridiculous in its script, plot and character portrayal that at times I was squirming in my seat. The construct of a 'Famous Five' group of brilliant minds battling against military idiocy with only the hand of the unseen Winston Churchill to assist them in their quest to save the world and then having achieved their goal to have such ownership of the fruit as to be allowed decide on its dissemination is totally laughable. I was left wondering whether this movie was meant for an adult audience or perhaps aimed more at 'young adults'.

If you want a drama/fictionalised portrayal of Turing that is both moving and thought provoking then watch Breaking the Code in full on YouTube.

Cheers, that sorts out what I'm watching this afternoon

funnights74

Ruu wrote: »

Have you seen the mini-series Bletchley Circle (ITV, UTV), Fox? I am waiting for the DVD.

Station X is another series from about 5 years ago that deals with the whole Bletchley park setup, if you can find it it's well worth a look.

Pierce_1991

Saw it this evening and loved it. I think Cumberbatch deserves an oscar nomination if only for the final twenty minutes of the film. Very difficult to watch towards the end, so sad.

Cyclingtourist

I was listening to The History Show on RTE Radio 1 yesterday and they were talking about the book that this movie is based on by Andrew Hodges 'Alan Turing: the Enigma' and Aoibhinn ni Suilleabhain said it was wrong they didn't give him an OBE or something.
He was given an OBE after the war and this was acknowledged in the 1950s and is mentioned in the 1996 BBC TV drama 'Breaking the Code: biography of Alan Turing'

Breaking the Code also has the Turing-Clarke relationship but also Turing's relationship with his mother and leaves a question mark over whether Turing did commit suicide or in fact it was an accidental death. It also depicts his homosexuality much as a heterosexual relationship would be depicted without being graphic and has Turing describing homosexual acts to a detective.

Having seen both I found the TV drama far more convincing and emotionally engaging.

GBXI

Excellent movie. Great story, well told, nice pace too.

Heat_Wave

One of the best movies I've ever seen.

Sam Mac

This was excellent. Both leads gave great performances and so did the supporting cast. Really interesting film too.

Wasn't bored at all watching it, unlike other films such as Lincoln. Kept me interested throughout.

Scared Hitless

Saw this movie at the weekend, really well done.
I had not realised they used another machine to break the Enigma code. Fascinating.

Fysh

The sets and visuals were nice, if somewhat drab. Performances were good, within the scope they were given. Direction was meh. Script, dialogue and plot were bloody woeful, reducing a fascinating if somewhat complex real-world scenario to a few sub-Beautiful-Mind-esque sequences and an utter lack of interest in the nature of the problem being solved. And don't talk to me about utter garbage like

having to contrive one of the team having a brother serving on one of the ships due to be attacked in order to present the "information vectors"/"we'll reveal that we've cracked Enigma" concept

. There were a lot of apparently intelligent people in this film who were frequently not very intelligent at all.

By choosing to focus on an insipid human drama angle instead of the much more interesting codebreaking plotline, this film managed to be ostensibly about a subject that fascinates me yet bore me rigid. Basically, a film about cryptography that's not actually interested in cryptography.

Technocentral

Fysh wrote: »

The sets and visuals were nice, if somewhat drab. Performances were good, within the scope they were given. Direction was meh. Script, dialogue and plot were bloody woeful, reducing a fascinating if somewhat complex real-world scenario to a few sub-Beautiful-Mind-esque sequences and an utter lack of interest in the nature of the problem being solved. And don't talk to me about utter garbage like

having to contrive one of the team having a brother serving on one of the ships due to be attacked in order to present the "information vectors"/"we'll reveal that we've cracked Enigma" concept

. There were a lot of apparently intelligent people in this film who were frequently not very intelligent at all.

By choosing to focus on an insipid human drama angle instead of the much more interesting codebreaking plotline, this film managed to be ostensibly about a subject that fascinates me yet bore me rigid. Basically, a film about cryptography that's not actually interested in cryptography.

Em, Pre, during and post war Britain was drab, everyone sais that, its a well known historical fact! Also the film was about him more so than cryptology, thats why it choose to ''focus on an insipid human drama angle".

Fysh

Technocentral wrote: »

Em, Pre, during and post war Britain was drab, everyone sais that, its a well known historical fact! Also the film was about him more so than cryptology, thats why it choose to ''focus on an insipid human drama angle".

The reason he is remembered is that he laid the groundwork for computing and information theory as we understand it today. This is what enabled him, along with his colleagues at Bletchley (who were more involved in the design and engineering of the Bombes than the film suggests) to crack the code. The film significantly reduces the complexity of the challenge involved in this and replaces it with nonsensical conflicts with apparent idiots (any military commander who doesn't appreciate the value of a decryption engine for cryptanalysis is an idiot, end of story) and contrivances (

MI6 are apparently smart enough to plant a mole who will leak useful information to the Soviets and help them against the Germans, butnnot smart enough to conceive of Ultra until Turing suggests it

).

There's a better human drama story/myth to be told about Turing than

The Story Of A Man Who Wanted To Build A Robot Boyfriend To Replace His Dead Childhood Crush

, which may as well have been the subtitle of this film.

Technocentral

Fysh wrote: »

The reason he is remembered is that he laid the groundwork for computing and information theory as we understand it today. This is what enabled him, along with his colleagues at Bletchley (who were more involved in the design and engineering of the Bombes than the film suggests) to crack the code. The film significantly reduces the complexity of the challenge involved in this and replaces it with nonsensical conflicts with apparent idiots (any military commander who doesn't appreciate the value of a decryption engine for cryptanalysis is an idiot, end of story) and contrivances (

MI6 are apparently smart enough to plant a mole who will leak useful information to the Soviets and help them against the Germans, butnnot smart enough to conceive of Ultra until Turing suggests it

).

There's a better human drama story/myth to be told about Turing than

The Story Of A Man Who Wanted To Build A Robot Boyfriend To Replace His Dead Childhood Crush

, which may as well have been the subtitle of this film.

I've read 3 books on him and Bletchley Park so I know all about his work, the film was more about him as a human being.

D'Agger

Fysh wrote: »

The reason he is remembered is that he laid the groundwork for computing and information theory as we understand it today. This is what enabled him, along with his colleagues at Bletchley (who were more involved in the design and engineering of the Bombes than the film suggests) to crack the code. The film significantly reduces the complexity of the challenge involved in this and replaces it with nonsensical conflicts with apparent idiots (any military commander who doesn't appreciate the value of a decryption engine for cryptanalysis is an idiot, end of story) and contrivances (

MI6 are apparently smart enough to plant a mole who will leak useful information to the Soviets and help them against the Germans, butnnot smart enough to conceive of Ultra until Turing suggests it

).

There's a better human drama story/myth to be told about Turing than

The Story Of A Man Who Wanted To Build A Robot Boyfriend To Replace His Dead Childhood Crush

, which may as well have been the subtitle of this film.

I understand your issues but, this movie isn't about cryptography - it simply isn't. It's about Turing, and unfortunately, while his work was groundbreaking and he was a genius who changed the course of the war/world history - cryptography doesn't sell tickets, people are by and large, stupid. To that end, painting by numbers is what you will see on screen rather than a masterpiece where a historical figures true brilliance is reflected.

Personally, and I've stated it here, I loved the movie. I understood why they didn't focus on cryptography side of things more. However I'm in complete agreement on the situation

where the colleagues brother was on the ship about to be hit.....literally minutes after they'd cracked enigma

it was unnecessary and fell flat.

Regarding M16 & The commander - something I'm learning every day at work - upper management fail to understand simple concepts that could save them a fortune regarding resources such as time and money. For every smart thing being done you can guarantee they're doing 2/3 things idiotically :pac:

GBXI

D'Agger wrote: »

people are by and large, stupid. To that end, painting by numbers is what you will see on screen rather than a masterpiece where a historical figures true brilliance is reflected

Just to point out that this isn't true. People, by and large, go to the cinema to be entertained, not that they are stupid. If they wanted to be informed about Turing's work they would read up on him. But a movie is expected to entertain, that's why people go to the cinema.

Technocentral

GBXI wrote: »

Just to point out that this isn't true. People, by and large, go to the cinema to be entertained, not that they are stupid. If they wanted to be informed about Turing's work they would read up on him. But a movie is expected to entertain, that's why people go to the cinema.

That's only partially true, intelligent people also go to be informed and challenged to, there are a lot of (mostly European and World Cinema) films that are bleak and/or completely non narrative, they are hugely worthwhile but not "entertaining".

GBXI

Technocentral wrote: »

That's only partially true, intelligent people also go to be informed and challenged to, there are a lot of (mostly European and World Cinema) films that are bleak and/or completely non narrative, they are hugely worthwhile but not "entertaining".

Fair enough, that's true also. But I'm speaking about the public in general, whereas those European/World Cinema goers are in the minority.

Cyclingtourist

If people saw this movie and found it entertaining or 'one of the best movies they ever saw', then who am I to argue with that.

As I've posted here before I thought it was terrible on just about every level. Haven't seen a movie I hated so much since Moulin Rouge.

The plot and dialogue were adolescent, the characters cardboard cutout baddies and goodies.

This story, or rather the adult version, was dramatized over two decades ago on the stage and later for TV. If you want to see a quality production go on Youtube and search for The Codebreakers: biography of Alan Turing.

Cyclingtourist

Sorry, the name of the TV production was 'Breaking the Code: biography of Alan Turing'

themountainman

Enjoyed this movie, mainly for the story, but it was entertaining in general. Having seen the Sherlock TV show it was hard not to see the similarities between Cumberbatch's interpretation of both characters, so I found that a little hard to ignore. But overall it moved at a good pace and I enjoyed it.

e_e

Pretty dull movie. Getting a little tired of these amazing people getting thoroughly ordinary, bland and generic films made about them every year. This film fails both the genius of Turing and the talents of Cumberbatch. Here's hoping The Theory of Everything tries at least a little bit harder.

Looper007

e_e wrote: »

Pretty dull movie. Getting a little tired of these amazing people getting thoroughly ordinary, bland and generic films made about them every year. This film fails both the genius of Turing and the talents of Cumberbatch. Here's hoping The Theory of Everything tries at least a little bit harder.

I liked The Imitation game, it's not perfect or a classic but it's a entertaining film the kind BBC would show on Sunday afternoon which is lifted up more by a great performance by Cumberbatch ( I disagree with you e_e on saying it wasted his talents, his performance alone is worth watching the film).

The Theory of Everything has the same problems as the Imitation Game, it's a harmless BBC in the Sunday Afternoon film with a classic performance lifting it above its material, Eddie Redmanye is excellent as Stephen Hawking.

Pierce_1991

Agree with Looper007 on Cumberbatch. Thought he was fantastic, particularly

in the final scenes in his home where he breaks down. Excellent, heart wrenching stuff.

ktulu123

Saw it last night, fantastic movie!

MisterAnarchy

I thoroughly enjoyed the film ,one of the best I have seen in the last year if I'm honest.

Good acting,a brilliant soundtrack and a lean running time at under 2 hours .

However my primary criticism is that the film is almost wholly a work of fiction .
Its historically 80% inaccurate I'd say ,too much has been changed or fabricated .

Shiraz 4.99

I thought this started strongly, nobody does Charles Dance like Charles Dance.
Cumberbatch was fantastic in the role.

The 3 timelines got a bit messy especially with the police investigation after the war, I thought that part of the story could have been linear.

I really felt the post war scenes were the poorest.
There was a certain lack of fanfare once the war ended & the group were wound up.
I thought the story finished abruptly too and would have liked to see the full conclusion.

Good but not perfect, 7/10.

IvaBigWun

Cumberbatch aside this had all the look and feel of a BBC 2 Sunday night 3 part drama, rather than a Hollywood film being talked about for possibly Oscars.

If you want to see a film about a tormented genius then Ron Howard's 2001 "A Beautiful Mind" does it better in so many ways.

A disappointing 4/10 for me.

Looper007

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Cumberbatch aside this had all the look and feel of a BBC 2 Sunday night 3 part drama, rather than a Hollywood film being talked about for possibly Oscars.

If you want to see a film about a tormented genius then Ron Howard's 2001 "A Beautiful Mind" does it better in so many ways.

A disappointing 4/10 for me.

I thought Beautiful Mind was a load of crap to be fair Iva :pac:. I thought Shine with Geoffery Rush was better although both films told a load of porky pies when it came to their main characters true life events. I don't think The Imitation Game is a classic by any means but nothing wrong with a film that isn't all about fancy camera shots or mind blowing effects, Both this and The Theory of Everything have done amazingly well at the box office. But every year you get films like this that might not blow cinephiles minds but bring in the crowds and get a few Oscar nods.

Falthyron

Just saw this tonight and I have to say, I am a little disappointed. The movie itself is fine, but Cumberbatch is carrying it. I don't think he should win the Oscar, as I think it will go to Redmayne or Keaton, but he did a very good job. However, if you took Cumberbatch out of this role the movie is quite standard without being particularly noteworthy.

6.5/10

K-9

I really don't see where they got 8 Oscar nominations out of, The Theory of Everything is much better.

Flex

Im the same as a lot of the above posters, I was very disappointed by this. It was very drawn out and dull for large parts of it, although I was hoping it would

focus more on the Enigma machine and WW2 as those are things Im quite interested in, so maybe Im biased. Just really disliked the constant shifting back to his childhood, the message they were trying to get across could have been done with way fewer sequences and far less time.

donaghs

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

I thoroughly enjoyed the film ,one of the best I have seen in the last year if I'm honest.

Good acting,a brilliant soundtrack and a lean running time at under 2 hours .

However my primary criticism is that the film is almost wholly a work of fiction .
Its historically 80% inaccurate I'd say ,too much has been changed or fabricated .

I agree, entertaining and good acting. But enormity of the historical inaccuracies everywhere in the film undermine the whole thing.

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

I thought this started strongly, nobody does Charles Dance like Charles Dance.

Hard to know where to begin with the history comparison, but Charles Dance's portrayal of Denniston stood out like a sore thumb. Good acting all the same.

They make him out be merely a military bureaucrat managing a bunch of "eggheads" who's work he cannot comprehend fully.
In reality he had been a cryptologist himself in WW1. He was the one who actually sought out Turing and other skilled mathematicians BEFORE the war, knowing what was coming and the skills that would be needed.

And of course, without causing a spoiler, the "spy". In reality the government had no knowledge of his spying until the 1950s. And there's also no evidence that he ever met Turing.

Threw this one earlier today as I had two hours to kill and really left cold by what I saw. It's a worthy film, of that there is no doubt but it's far too familiar and I really can't see how it would have worked on a big screen. It looks and feels like a Bank Holiday BBC made for TV film and as such went through the motions.

There's a real safeness to events, they're told from such a hands off approach that one could go so far as to call it clinical. Performances are rather good all round but bar Turing we never get to know any of the others which is frustrating when you consider that the dynamic between the group is the films most interesting element. I'm surprised that the script was so well received given that it feels like a best of True Life Tales from the past decade package with some dreadfully trite dialogue and the kind of motivational speeches that would have felt cheesy in Rocky V. Knightley in particular was undeserved by a one dimensional character and some dialogue that just felt forced and unnatural.

The whole Russian spy angle was like so much else in the film introduced and then went nowhere, I would have liked to see a little more about it and how it was manipulated by MI6 to help turn the tides of war. The rigid nature of how the film is told really robs Turing of anything resembling the brilliance he had, here he comes across as a rather sad and lonely figure whose only goal in life is to build a robot friend so as to replace that single friend he had as a child. It's a dynamic and interesting spin on a story well told but thanks to the rather workmanlike direction and the dull, cliche riddled script it really never amounts to anything. And like so many other bio pics The Imitation Game ends with another God awful text epilogue, the kind that's so forcefully worthy that you can't help but roll your eyes.

The Imitation Game isn't a bad film, it's just so middle of the road and familiar that even those who have never heard of Turing or the Enigma project could guess where the film is going from the opening minutes. As a made for TV project it would make for perfectly harmless time killer but considering the talent and acclaim the film garnered one can't but be left disappointed by it.

The Strawman Argument

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm surprised that the script was so well received given that it feels like a best of True Life Tales from the past decade package with some dreadfully trite dialogue and the kind of motivational speeches that would have felt cheesy in Rocky V.

Agreed, thought it was a shocking script that managed to both understate and overstate the achievements of Turing and Bletchley Park.
Turing was arguably long overdue a Hollywoodified film about his life, I'd have to imagine there were scripts written that were both more faithful and less generic than what we got here. It really seemed like yer man the scriptwriter only ever read in any serious manner about Turing while researching for his script, forcing in pieces of his life into a structure he'd already decided on.

The eureka moment in particular pissed me off to no end, I felt as though it was something chosen because it'd be so simple that any idiot watching could understand what was going on but even then I felt it went wayyyyyy overboard, could be hugely off there, mind.
...and what the f*ck was that "MY BROTHER'S ON THAT BOAT" ****e in there for, it was ridiculous and added absolutely nothing to the scene, especially since that dude hardly spoke beforehand.

fryup

Just watched it on channel 4, brilliant movie thoroughly enjoyed it

btw - does it differ much from the kate winslet movie enigma ??

constitutionus

ditto.

thought it was brilliant. very enjoyable watch.

its on again on RTE this wed for those that missed it on C4

philstar

brilliant film, well acted by all involved