Thursday, January 1, 2015

Film Review - The Imitation Game (2015)

The Imiation Game stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, a mathematician in World War 2 who puts his hand up to help the British forces break the German Enigma code which is crippling the allied forces but even the brightest of men can keep very dark secrets.

Going into this film I had seen the trailer and heard a fair bit about it but I was left a little unsure but I liked the cast of Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance and Mark Strong so it couldn't be all bad right?

Yes but not in the way you might be expecting as I actually thought this film was pretty good and the reason for that is those performers all of whom are very good with surprisingly Knightley being the most effective and Cumberbatch not as effective as I've seen him be in his vocal work especially as Smaug but the emotional response he and the overall film strive for is delivered in the end and for me I thought it worked.

However the film at times struggles at times to keep its eye on the main focus of the film: Is it about Turing the Man or Turing the Code Breaker and at times these do feel like 2 distinct films in their own right that don't quite come together as successfully as they should but as I said when the film reaches for its final emotional resonance it does deliver so this really feels like a minor complaint.

And so the Imitation Game is a good film if not a great one, 3 out of 5.

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