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How odd that “The Imitation Game,” one of the more rousingly entertaining crowd-pleasers coming out this holiday season—as endorsed by its People’s Choice Award at the Toronto film festival—also happens to be one of the most devastatingly sad.

On one hand, this is a tense World War II thriller about a stellar team of Brits who cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code. The movie boasts its own inspirational rallying cry, repeated three times in case you miss it, which would be perfect for embossing on a holly-bedecked greeting card: “Sometimes, it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one imagines.”

On the other hand, it is an examination of the tragic circumstances that befell Alan Turing, the film’s central hero, who brings victory to the Allies by inventing a revolutionary machine that would give birth to the computer age. He would later be publicly vilified and savagely punished for engaging in homosexual activity, which was criminalized in England at the time, before committing suicide in 1954.

Instead of being festooned with a chest full of medals, the closeted genius who saved countless lives by significantly shortening the war was cruelly subjected to chemically-induced castration in lieu of jail time. And, because much of the details were kept classified for 50 years, few knew of the extent of his wartime feats, even though he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his services in 1945. He was officially pardoned of his offenses by Queen Elizabeth in 2013—a case of too little too late.

This atypical biopic about the brilliant, impossibly arrogant and socially awkward mathematician (played by Benedict Cumberbatch , impeccably perfect in every way) is a somewhat hard read at first. Most likely, it was the intent of screenwriter Graham Moore to make a puzzle out a film about puzzle solving. That is not necessarily a bad thing, however, once the pieces fall into in place. The fractured narrative starts off as a mystery in 1951 with a detective investigating a burglary at Turing’s home where, strangely, nothing was stolen. Eventually, the plot flashes back to 1928 and shifts into a heart-breaking love story as a teen Turing, a brutally bullied school-boy prodigy, chastely falls for a fellow classmate named Christopher.

But “The Imitation Game” is most on its game when it primarily sticks to being a John le Carre-lite espionage version of “Revenge of the Nerds,” beginning in 1939 as it introduces a battleground of the mind that relies on superior intellect rather than bombs to beat the enemy. Norwegian director Morten Tyldum in his English-language debut provides just enough science to explain what is at stake while escalating the beat-the-clock tension involved in the mission conducted by Turing and a handful of other high-IQ cohorts. Alexandre Desplat ’s hauntingly propulsive score further enhances the suspense while capturing the gravity of the situation.

It might seem a no-brainer to hire Cumberbatch for the job of bringing Turing to life. After all, what other actor these days is as well-suited to emblemize an aloof smarty-pants? Sorry, Robert Downey Jr. The torch has been passed. Instead of constantly reminding “Sherlock” fans of his Emmy-winning role as the Arthur Conan Doyle’s master of deduction, Cumberbatch has broken his own code of how to distinguish this particular eccentric genius as a completely separate but yet no less compelling entity.

To portray Turing, Cumberbatch’s seductive purr is less mellifluous, his lips are slightly pursed, his gaze is often averted and, despite his unwavering confidence in his thinking skills, there is an air of vulnerability and melancholy about him.

But, like Sherlock, Turing is given to verbal dust-ups that often end amusingly, especially with such haughty superiors as the uncompromising Commander Denniston (a superb Charles Dance , whose patrician nose practically rears up in disgust whenever his by-the-book overlord encounters Cumberbatch’s defiant whiz). Turing also has his protector in Mark Strong ’s head of intelligence, who calmly, coolly and with a sly wink runs interference for his not-exactly-diplomatic secret weapon at every turn.

As for the rest of the code breakers, Matthew Goode stands out as a caddish chess champ Hugh Alexander, who initially butts heads with Turing until he realizes the depth of his abilities. On board as John Cairncross is Allen Leech , best known as Branson the Irish chauffeur-turned-terrorist-turned aristocrat on “Downton Abbey,” who is the most tolerant of Turing’s idiosyncrasies.

If anyone comes close to matching Cumberbatch’s efforts, however, it is Keira Knightley . She brings a much-needed warmth, humor and Anglicized spunk to the proceedings as Joan Clarke, immediately winning over the audience’s affections when she is mistakenly pegged as a secretarial candidate while trying out for a code-breaking position. Clarke is as much of an odd duck as Turing—and perhaps even brighter—as the lone female involved in deciphering Enigma. Since it is considered “indecorous” for a single woman to work and share living quarters alongside men, she must sneak about to contribute to the effort.

Some of the best scenes involve Clarke and Turing, who confide in one another as equals—especially since both must hide their true identities. One of the more meaningful moments arrives when Turing jealously watches as Clarke immediately charms Alexander, a shameless pickup artist. When Turing asks her how she so easily made him like her, Clarke replies with Knightley’s posh accent, “I’m a woman in a man’s job. I don’t have the luxury of being an ass.” The "like you" at the end of that sentence is implied, of course.

Matters turn slightly hokey as the final solution to Enigma code relies on several “By Jove, I’ve got it” revelations. But, by then, you will likely be fully invested in the outcome, no matter how out of left field it might seem. Some of Cumberbatch’s most affecting work is when the older and close-to-defeated Turing is at the end of his rope, unable to even focus on a crossword puzzle because of the drugs he has been given. But as I sit here typing away, I realize I have Turing to thank for being able to access a wealth of information with just a few key strokes and a click of a mouse.

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

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Film credits.

The Imitation Game (2014)

Rated PG-13 for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking

114 minutes

Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing

Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke

Mark Strong as Stewart Menzies

Matthew Goode as Hugh Alexander

Rory Kinnear as Nock

Charles Dance as Commander Denniston

Allen Leech as John Cairncross

Matthew Beard as Peter Hilton

Morten Tyldum
Graham Moore
Alexandre Desplat
William Goldenberg

Director of Photography

Óscar Faura

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The Imitation Game Reviews

The movie goes beyond requiem thanks to Cumberbatch's performance, the supporting actors and the surprising intensity of a spy thriller set mainly in two rooms and a garage. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 1, 2024

Call out the "Oscar bait" planning and intentional polish all you want, but you won't be seeing a bad film whatsoever. You will be seeing a calculated crowd pleaser with perfect delivery, through and through.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 4, 2023

The aftertaste is somewhat schizophrenic: the founder of one of the pillars of our time was both a hero and martyr. It's a riddle the film doesn't try to solve. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 23, 2022

The Imitation Game does a fine job of making Turing's life story accessible for mass consumption—arguably to a fault.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2022

With its focus on the internal struggle as significant as the code-breaking itself, it sets it apart from its Bletchley Park predecessor, the decidedly wet Enigma.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 2, 2021

The film deserves credit for pointing viewers in the direction of such a compelling individual and historical drama.

Full Review | Feb 12, 2021

Supporting cast and period production values are top notch, but it's Cumberbatch who excels, peeling back the layers of Turing's enigmatic life.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 2, 2021

Unfortunately, the film suffers from a weak script that fails to properly educate the audience about Turing...and it also downplays Turing's homosexuality.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jan 30, 2021

Manages a surmounting level of intrigue from both its deft performances and its shuffling narrative of past, present, and post-war events.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 4, 2020

The accolades bestowed on this otherwise well mounted but incredibly milquetoast production is the political statement that the film simply does not have the courage to muster on its own.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 28, 2020

It's right that the film is recognised for its dramatic performances, in particular Benedict Cumberbatch who shines in the role as Alan Turing. But ultimately once it ends you may feel you've seen better movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 15, 2020

The curious thing about The Imitation Game, without falling into bombast, is that it breaks codes with the wonderful performance of Benedict Cumberbatch. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 26, 2020

One of the film's achievements comes from hinting at the enormous power possessed by an unseen monarch...

Full Review | Jun 18, 2020

Benedict Cumberbatch...Mark Strong and Matthew Goode... each delivers enigmatic performances that challenge the audience to think and look below the surface for the truth of each real life character portrayed.

Full Review | Dec 14, 2019

Though hindsight is always 20/20, The Imitation Game gives us a fair and balanced glance at the tragedies that prejudice and inequality can cause. Turing achieved more in one war-torn decade than Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

Full Review | Sep 15, 2019

It is watchable and entertaining but more importantly it's a movie that reveals to the world a man who's achievements many more should celebrate.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 2, 2019

Cumberbatch conveys tortured humanity behind the analytical façade, even if we also understand and even chuckle at how frustrating Turing could be to those working with him.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.75/5 | Jul 19, 2019

Restrained and tasteful in a very British sort of way, but it almost seems afraid to tackle its subject head on.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 5, 2019

Gorgeously realised, engagingly witty and with great performances all around, The Imitation Game is engrossing and accomplished.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 15, 2019

Keira Knightley is cut-glass and surprisingly convincing as Joan Clark.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 4, 2019

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The imitation game, common sense media reviewers.

Strong performances buoy teen-friendly historical drama.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Perseverance pays off. Gender doesn't dictate

Turing sticks to his guns and his beliefs despite

Bullies torment a classmate at a boys' school;

Couples flirt in social situations. Sexual identit

Some swearing; mostly British slang from the perio

Social drinking and period-accurate smoking. A cha

Positive Messages

Perseverance pays off. Gender doesn't dictate intelligence or competency (the 1940s, specifically the Bletchley Project in England, helped usher in gender equality in the sciences). Empathy is a major theme.

Positive Role Models

Turing sticks to his guns and his beliefs despite being told by his superiors that he's wrong. Joan Clarke was ahead of her time in her response to Turing's sexuality and courageous in her approach to work.

Violence & Scariness

Bullies torment a classmate at a boys' school; they trap him under floorboards, tease him in the yard, and shove him around. Scenes of battle during World War II show bombs being dropped, buildings exploding, and soldiers firing at enemies. Professional arguments at work are laced with personal vendettas and implied threats.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Couples flirt in social situations. Sexual identity is a theme of the movie.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Some swearing; mostly British slang from the period. One character is labeled a "toff" and a "poof."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Social drinking and period-accurate smoking. A character makes a reference to taking drugs that cause chemical castration.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Imitation Game is a historical drama that explores the role that cryptologists and mathematicians played in World War II. Expect candid discussions about lives lost during war, accompanied by footage showing bombs falling and soldiers firing guns. A boy is also tormented by school bullies. Leading the team of scientists trying to break the Germans' Enigma code is Alan Turing ( Benedict Cumberbatch ), a closeted homosexual who ends up being vilified for his sexuality. The subject of is handled fairly delicately and is discussed in mostly oblique ways, though characters do call him slurs, like "toff." Ultimately there are strong themes about the power of persistence and the fact that gender doesn't dictate intelligence or competency. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (26)
Kids say (51)

Based on 26 parent reviews

Beware of several graphic sexual discussions for younger children

(spoiler) great movie for bright kids -- but with a big note of caution, what's the story.

THE IMITATION GAME begins in 1941, when Europe is in the clutches of Nazi Germany. In Britain, air raids have become a way of life, and thousands of soldiers are dying on the battlefield. To fight its enemies, the British government recruits the country's best mathematicians and scientists to help break the code for the Enigma, a machine the Germans use to send instructions to their military personnel. Enter Alan Turing ( Benedict Cumberbatch ), a Cambridge-educated cryptologist who, with a team of mathematicians -- including the pioneering Joan Clarke ( Keira Knightley ), one of a very few women on the project -- sets out to crack Enigma and its secrets. But Turing holds a secret of his own: He's gay. And he may be attacked by his peers, and the government, for that fact.

Is It Any Good?

Without question, Cumberbatch is up to the task of bringing to life a complicated, brilliant man. Turing is multi-dimensional, his emotional depths layered. He is, by far, the best part of this enjoyable, if flawed, film. As entertainment, The Imitation Game has loads to recommend it: It's paced well, features strong performances from the ensemble, and does a fine enough job of explaining the ideas behind cryptology. But history buffs will know that it's a condensation and that the filmmakers have been liberal with their shortcuts. Bletchley Park, where the Enigma code was broken, had dozens of code-breakers toiling on the project, not the handful shown here. (They're framed and shot like a gang of superheroes before the climax of a big face-off -- a simplistic take on greatness.)

Turing's achievements can't be boiled down to one cinematic moment, as they are here. It would have been better if the movie had attempted to show the project's elaborateness, rather than simplifying it for the screen. And his hidden homosexuality is given a rather superficial study, its impact on his life hurried in the final act. Still, Cumberbatch deserves all the praise that he'll no doubt reap. He's fantastic.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Turing's personal life and how it was dragged through the mud in the 1950s. How does The Imitation Game depict this? How might it be different today?

Some facts were altered to fit the movie's narrative. How do you feel about that? Should movies inspired by history be strictly factual? Why might filmmakers choose to tweak the facts?

How does the movie portray bullying ? What effects does it have?

How do the characters in The Imitation Game demonstrate empathy and perseverance ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Movie Details

In theaters : November 28, 2014
On DVD or streaming : March 31, 2015
Cast : Benedict Cumberbatch , Keira Knightley , Matthew Goode
Director : Morten Tyldum
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Weinstein Co.
Genre : Drama
Topics : History
Character Strengths : Empathy , Perseverance
Run time : 114 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking
Award : Common Sense Selection
Last updated : May 6, 2024

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Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Imitation Game’

Morten tyldum narrates a sequence from ”the imitation game,” featuring benedict cumberbatch..

By A.O. Scott

Nov. 27, 2014

“The Imitation Game” is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Alan Turing’s tragically shortened life — he was 41 when he died in 1954 — is a complex and fascinating story, bristling with ideas and present-day implications, and it benefits from the streamlined structure and accessible presentation of modern prestige cinema. The science is not too difficult, the emotions are clear and emphatic, and the truth of history is respected just enough to make room for tidy and engrossing drama.

An Alan Turing biopic is, all in all, a very welcome thing. Chances are that you are reading this, as I am writing it, on a device that came into being partly as a result of papers Turing published in the 1930s exploring the possibility of what he called a “universal machine.” His decisive contribution to the breaking of the Nazi Enigma code gave the Allied forces an intelligence advantage that helped defeat Germany, though the extent of his wartime role was kept secret for many years. The secret of his homosexuality was revealed when he was arrested on indecency charges in 1952, caught up in a Cold War climate of homophobia and political paranoia and subjected to the pseudoscientific cruelty of the British judicial system.

Battle of the British Geniuses

Benedict cumberbatch, left, and eddie redmayne both star in biopics about ingenious british men..

“The battle of the British geniuses” is one of the themes that has emerged from this years Oscar race, for this year there are two biopics about two ingenious English men. One is the “Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which tells the story about Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who cracked a seemingly impenetrable Nazi code, known as enigma, only to be persecuted for being gay. The other is “Theory of Everything,” starring Eddie Redmayne as the astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, in a film that focuses largely on his 30-year marriage to his indomitable wife Jane, played by Felicity Jones. Both films are in the running for best picture nods, and both leads - Mr. Redmayne and Mr. Cumberbatch - are projected to be nominated for best actor. This has raised the specter that, for Academy voters, the films might in effect cancel each other out, by dint of their roughly similar themes. Adding a further twist, Mr. Cumberbatch played Stephen Hawking, in a BBC television production in 2004. Both of their characters also find indefatigable support in exceptionally bright women - in the “Imitation Game,” it is the character played by Keira Knightley, and in Theory of Everything, Ms. Jones. OF course there are differences between the two. “Imitation Game” is more of an ensemble piece, and “Theory of Everything” a story of a couple whose relationship ultimately runs its course. Mr. Cumberbatch’s Turing is cut off from others by both his homosexuality - which was illegal at the time - and his inability to read social cues. As Hawking, Mr. Redmayne undergoes an astonishing physical transformation as he bodies is increasingly paralyzed by ALS. And, for both actors, the challenge was to reach beyond these impediments to reveal the inner emotional life of each man.

All of this is a lot for a single movie to take in, and “The Imitation Game,” directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Graham Moore, prunes and compresses a narrative laid out most comprehensively in Andrew Hodges’s scrupulous and enthralling 1983 biography . The film interweaves three decisive periods in Turing’s life, using his interrogation by a Manchester detective (Rory Kinnear) as a framing device. Turing tells the investigator — who thinks he is after a Soviet spy rather than a gay man — about what he did during the war. Later, there are flashbacks to Turing’s school days, where he discovered the joys of cryptography and fell in love with a slightly older boy named Christopher Morcom.

The adult Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch (his younger self is Alex Lawther), expanding his repertoire of socially awkward intellectual prodigies, real and fictional. What has made Mr. Cumberbatch so effective as Sherlock Holmes and Julian Assange — and what makes his Alan Turing one of the year’s finest pieces of screen acting — is his curious ability to suggest cold detachment and acute sensitivity at the same time. If he did not exist, 21st-century popular culture would have to invent him: a sentient robot, an empathetic space alien, a warm-blooded salamander with crazy sex appeal .

Movie Review: ‘The Imitation Game”

The times critic a. o. scott reviews “the imitation game.”.

His Turing, whom the film seems to place somewhere on the autism spectrum, is as socially awkward as he is intellectually agile. He can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal. Jokes fly over his head, sarcasm does not register, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation.

“The Imitation Game” derives some easy amusement from the friction between this “odd duck” and the prevailing culture of his native pond. The film’s notion of Britain — not inaccurate, but also not hugely insightful — is as a land of understatement, indirection and steadfast obedience to norms of behavior that seem, to a fiercely logical mind like Turing’s, arbitrary and incomprehensible. At Bletchley Park, the country estate where teams of linguists and mathematicians are working under military supervision to break Enigma, he is seen as stubborn and arrogant. The head of Bletchley, Commander Denniston (Charles Dance), finds him insufferable, as does Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), the suave, clever playboy who runs the Enigma project until Turing, with an off-screen assist from Winston Churchill, displaces him.

The Bletchley section, enlivened by the indispensably charming Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, the only woman on the Enigma team, is the heart of the film, though it is also the most familiar and in some ways the least challenging part. (Earlier dramatizations include Hugh Whitemore’s play “Breaking the Code” and Michael Apted’s silly, Turing-free 2002 movie “Enigma.” ) Mr. Tyldum, a Norwegian filmmaker perhaps best known for the slick thriller “Headhunters” (2012), orchestrates a swift and suspenseful race against the clock with a few touches of intrigue and ethical uncertainty. Mark Strong pops out of the shadows now and then as a silky, cynical MI6 spymaster, perhaps the only person in the British political establishment who fully appreciates Turing’s oddity and his genius.

“The Imitation Game,” meanwhile, settles for a partial appreciation. Turing’s sexuality is mystified and marginalized, treated as an abstraction and a plot point. There is no sense that, between his chaste, intense and brief passion for Christopher and the anonymous encounter that led indirectly to his arrest, love, sex or romance played any significant part in Turing’s life at all. Mr. Hodges’s biography, threaded with quotations from Walt Whitman, gives eloquent and sensitive testimony to the contrary. For their part, the filmmakers, though willing to treat Turing as a victim of bigotry and repression, also nudge him back toward the closet, imposing a discretion that is at once self-protective and self-congratulatory. It’s not that we need to see him having sex — the PG-13 rating must be protected, I guess — but that a vital aspect of his identity and experience deserves more than a whisper and a wink.

Stars Attend ‘The Imitation Game’ Premiere in New York

View Slide Show ›

The film’s sexual politics may be musty and retrograde, but in other respects, it is very much a document of the present. There are lines of dialogue that sound either anachronistic or — it may amount to the same thing — prophetic. It is thrilling and strange to hear the words “digital computer” uttered a half-century before any such thing existed, and when Turing says “think differently,” it is impossible not to hear a grammatically fastidious premonition of the once-ubiquitous Apple advertising slogan. Another sentence — a slightly clumsy invocation of the power of imagination — is repeated three times and sounds each time as if it had been plagiarized from a TED talk.

More fundamentally, “The Imitation Game” is a parable of disruption. It not only provides an origin myth for the digital age, but it also projects the ideology of the present back into the past. Turing, an eccentric visionary stuck in an organization that is bureaucratic, hierarchical and wedded to tradition, is an apostle of innovation. Commander Denniston lectures him about the importance of “order, discipline and chain of command” for the war effort, but the solving of Enigma decisively rebuts this old-fashioned notion. The strategic acumen of generals and the tactical valor of soldiers is incidental. What won the war was data, and the heroes were the tech guys (and the one woman) who worked late, snacked freely, fiddled with crossword puzzles and geeked out over a piece of hardware that looked like a giant toy. Hut 8 at Bletchley Park serves as a prototype for the corporate campuses of Apple, Google and Facebook.

Just a few years ago, this film might have felt radical and counterintuitive, like a daring, inspired leap from one era to another, or an excavation of the hidden history of the present. Instead, it has the shiny, hollow ring of conventional wisdom. It’s kind of perfect, and also kind of stale.

“The Imitation Game” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Illicit sex, cataclysmic violence and advanced math, most of it mentioned rather than shown.

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The Imitation Game

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

It’s an undeniable pleasure to dig into a crackling spy thriller dished out by experts. The Imitation Game is an immersive true story that laces dizzying tension with raw emotion. Benedict Cumberbatch , an Emmy winner for Sherlock Holmes, turns on the brainpower again to play Alan Turing, a genius mathematician and social misfit who teamed up with a handful of cryptanalysts at London’s Bletchley Park during World War II to crack the Nazis’ naval code and help win the war. That he did, only to see his achievements buried in government secrecy and to end his own life in 1954 after being persecuted for the then-crime of homosexuality. The queen pardoned him posthumously last year. Talk about too little, too late.

And yet The Imitation Game doesn’t dawdle over the spilled milk of social treachery. The roguish script by newcomer Graham Moore alleviates the feel of a musty period piece. And Norwegian filmmaker Morten Tyldum ( Headhunters ) directs with masterly assurance, fusing suspense and character to create a movie that vibrates with energy.

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The film’s prime force is Cumberbatch, a great actor whose talent shines here on its highest beams. It’s an explosive, emotionally complex performance. An early scene in which Turing, 27, interviews for a job at Bletchley with Commander Dennison (Charles Dance, doing smug to a turn) is wonderfully comic as Turing gains the upper hand. The commander retaliates by hiring chess champion Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode) to head the unit, which includes John Cairncross (Allen Leech) and Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard). Turing later persuades Winston Churchill to put him in charge of his perceived inferiors. He’s more amenable to Joan Clarke ( Keira Knightley ), the only woman in the unit. Knightley is terrific, giving a supporting role major dimensions. It’s sharply poignant to watch these two delude themselves into considering marriage.

The action ignites when, after two years of effort, Turing invents his Enigma-busting machine, a proto-computer geared to break a code that the Nazis change every 24 hours. It’s been a long time since intellectual sparring created such excitement onscreen. I’ve heard a few critics dismiss this mind-bender as hopelessly old-hat. Ha! If so, long live retro.

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The Imitation Game exposes a little-known part of WWII: mathematician Alan Turing's (Benedict Cumberbatch) top-secret quest to crack the Nazi coded message system known as "Enigma". Working at Bletchley Park alongside other accomplished code breakers like Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode) and the uniquely gifted Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), Turing proposes a radical concept: building a 'thinking machine' that can outfox the German system.

However, Alan's greatest obstacle proves to be his own mind. With few social skills and little regard for the intellect of others, Turing quickly finds himself isolated from the group, with wolves like Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance) waiting for any opportunity to tear down both him and his work. Through the patience and compassion of his fellow code-breakers, Alan slowly learns to play the socio-political game that will help him achieve his critical vision. But beating Enigma proves to be only one big challenge in the tragic life of an eccentric genius.

Based on the pivotal book, Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, The Imitation Game is a film that manages to offer new insights into the exhausted WWII movie sub-genre, buoyed by some fantastic performances from a great ensemble cast. While the script and performances may be strong, the movie is not all that it can be on a cinematic level, providing one of more uninteresting onscreen portraits of the war itself.

Norwegian director Morten Tyldum ( Headhunters ) is at his best when staging the film like a stage play. The scene composition is simple, the cinematography crisp and modern, and the production design a fitting throwback to the WWII era. Tyldum lets the actors work out each scene with little intrusion, and as a result, most of the onscreen interactions between characters are intriguing to watch.

What is not so intriguing, is the depiction of the war outside of the academic mission at Bletchley. A combination of stock footage and game board-looking military sequences are supposed to depict WWII battles - and possibly the discrepancy between the code breakers' imaginings of combat and the actual reality of the war. However, seeing well-staged scenes of conversation juxtaposed to cheap-looking recreations of warfare actually creates the atmosphere of watching a well-done (but budgeted) BBC docudrama, rather than a major motion picture. It's not a deal-breaker of any sort, but it's enough to keep The Imitation Game from really achieving top levels of cinematic greatness as a film - as opposed to serving as a strong actor showcase.

The film represents the first feature-length script by writer Graham Moore, and even with the usual biopic criticisms (certain liberties taken, certain information skimmed over or left out), it's still a pretty effective narrative. Using a flashback framing device (Turing's post-war troubles, his wartime heroism, and boyhood traumas), we get a solid character through-line tracking how this eccentric genius was always hindered by his own eccentricities, which included an 'Asperger-ish' personality and closeted homosexuality - the latter of which was considered a crime by British law of that time.

With a solid central focus on Alan - and conversely a thematic focus on the rewards of genius vs. the cost - Moore is free to open things up a bit, mining great wit and deeper insight via other characters who surround Turing. Much like Cumberbatch's star-making role as a fictional iconic Brit ( Sherlock ), most of The Imitation Games' fun is found in how normal individuals react to this incredibly abnormal man.

To that end, Cumberbatch invokes part of his Sherlock character mannerisms - but manages to flesh them out with much more nuance and subtly to provide much deeper insight into the complex man Alan Turing was. It would be easy to dismiss the performance as a Sherlock knockoff (and savvy viewers may do just that), but looking at the role independently, it is quite good and worthy of some (if not all) awards consideration.

Matthew Goode ( Watchmen ) and Keira Knightley ( Atonement ) prove to be fantastic supporting foils for Cumberbatch. Goode exudes suave confidence, charm, and well-layered angst as the more personable genius, Hugh Alexander, and he and Turing's relationship proves to be a solid secondary arc of the story. Similarly, Knightley has cute charm and strong composure as a brilliant woman living in a sexist era. Her interactions with Cumberbatch (though perhaps embellishing the real Joan/Alan story) help to ground things, and offer entry into other aspects of Turning's personality (bad and good) aside from his lauded genius. Indeed, watching Turing attempt socialization with Hugh and Joan is often as gripping as watching the trio trying to crack the Enigma puzzle.

The larger supporting cast includes veteran thespians like Charles Dance ( Game of Thrones ) and Mark Strong ( Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ) - as well as quality younger actors like Allen Leech ( The Tudors ), Rory Kinnear ( Skyfall ) and Matthew Beard ( An Education ). No matter their respective experience, all of the actors seem to effortlessly breathe life into their respective characters, and function with snappy wit as an ensemble. Leech and Kinnear get some particularly interesting subplots to play out, and do so with such control and subtly it may be hard to spot at first (the mark of great character actors). Finally, young actor Alex Lawther gives a breakout performance as the young version of Turing struggling through a pivotal point in his life.

In the end, The Imitation Game is a fantastic piece of historical theater that never fully embraces its cinematic identity. The subject matter alone sets it apart as more interesting and insightful than the average movie memoir - and combined with the performances of Cumberbatch and Co., it's definitely a winner. However, with limited cinematic scope it wouldn't be a shame if you missed this one in theaters and instead, waited for home release; but if you want to get a lead on the 2015 awards race, this is definitely required viewing.

The Imitation Game is now playing in limited release. It expands to wider release in the forthcoming weeks - check your local theater for showings. The movie is 114 minutes long and is Rated PG-13 for some sexual references, mature thematic material and... "historical smoking."

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Review: ‘Imitation Game’ a crackerjack tale about Enigma buster Alan Turing

Kenneth Turan reviews ‘The Imitation Game’ Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode. Video by Jason H. Neubert

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The disturbing, involving, always-complex story of British mathematician Alan Turing is a tale crafted to resonate for our time, and the smartly entertaining “The Imitation Game” gives it the kind of crackerjack cinematic presentation that’s pure pleasure to experience.

Turing, exceptionally well-played by Benedict Cumberbatch, was a brilliant man, often considered the father of computer science, whose top-secret work as a code breaker of genius shortened World War II by years, saved millions of lives and was so central to the Allied victory that it was said the war could not have been won without it.

But Turing was also a homosexual at a time when that was an out and out crime in Britain, and as a result (a bit like the politically suspect atomic physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in this country), he was humiliated and destroyed by a postwar establishment that would have perished without his efforts.

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Named after a paper Turing wrote about artificial intelligence, “The Imitation Game” does not lack for conventional elements. But they are handled with such depth and emotion by a top cast that includes Keira Knightley, Mark Strong and Charles Dance that we end up impressed by the level of intelligent storytelling it provides.

Stories this involving invariably start with a persuasive script, and Graham Moore’s is so good, filled with on-target dialogue that’s as explosive as any wartime munitions, that it landed at the top of the 2012 Black List for best unproduced scripts.

“Imitation Game” goes back and forth between three time periods, starting in 1952 in Manchester with a startling monologue (“Pay close attention, I will not pause, I will not repeat myself” is how it begins) that Turing delivers to a busybody police detective (Rory Kinnear) during the interrogation that follows his arrest for “gross indecency.”

Things then flash back to 1939 at Bletchley Park, the site of Turing’s code-breaking exploits and the film’s central location, as well as retreating even further in time to Turing’s miserable 1929 schoolboy days at the Sherborne School.

Giving Turing’s wartime exploits, as well as the entire film, the unexpected pacing of a thriller is the work of Norwegian director Morten Tyldum, whose crackling “Headhunters,” adapted from the novel by Jo Nesbo, became the highest-grossing film in that country’s history.

The same qualities that the director exhibited in that picture, including a fascination with narrative structure, the creation of a frisson of danger and an ability to handle personal situations as well as action moments, give “Imitation Game” more high tension than its outline would have you believe.

Helping in this, as he does in all things, is star Cumberbatch. For years, he’s been excellent in smaller roles in films like “Amazing Grace,” “The Other Boleyn Girl” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” but he didn’t become a major player until he became Sherlock Holmes on British TV.

Good as he’s been in the past, however, the richness and complexity of Turing’s character make this portrayal of an arrogant, difficult, sure-of-himself individual the role of Cumberbatch’s career. His performance makes Turing accessible, even palatable, and gives us a sense of how smart, how impossible, yet how finally human was this man whose idea of a compliment was to say, “That is not an entirely terrible idea.”

The wartime sections of “Imitation Game” open with Turing, as he often was, in an adversarial mode. Only 27 but one of the world’s best mathematicians, he has come down to Bletchley Park to offer his services as a code breaker, but the spit-and-polish man in charge, Cmdr. Denniston (a splendidly apoplectic Dance), takes an instant dislike to him and is about to show him the door — until he mentions Enigma.

Nazi Germany’s code creator, the super-secret Enigma machine was considered all but unbreakable because of the millions of options possible for the codes it created daily. Turing believes he knows how to beat it, but it won’t be easy.

The British have put together a team to break Enigma’s code, including the suave national chess champion Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode) and the empathetic John Cairncross (“Downton Abbey’s” Allen Leech).

But being on a team is definitely not Turing’s style, and because the culture of personal small talk is one code he will never break, he is totally at sea in human relations. Turing hopes to best Enigma by creating another machine, one that can think, but he is such a pain that his teammates almost hope he fails.

Turing’s fortunes begin to change when key people start to believe in him, including MI6 honcho Stewart Menzies (Strong) and a diffident female math whiz named Joan Clarke (Knightley) he hires as the result of a newspaper crossword puzzle competition.

The level-headed but invariably cheerful Clarke, who frankly tells the difficult Turing, “I’m a woman in a man’s job. I don’t have the luxury of being an ass,” is some of Knightley’s best work. She sees Turing for what he is, attraction to men included, but his personality does not stand in the way of their closeness.

As a marvelous-looking computing machine gradually gets built (Maria Djurkovic is the production designer), the truth of “Imitation Game’s” Turing-generated theme becomes more and more apparent: “Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” A too tidy sentiment, perhaps, but a top-notch film nevertheless.

Twitter: @KennethTuran

--------------------------------

‘The Imitation Game’

MPAA rating: PG-13 for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking

Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes

Playing: At ArcLight, Hollywood, Landmark Theater, West L.A.

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The Imitation Game review – an engrossing and poignant thriller

“A re you paying attention?” breathes Benedict Cumberbatch’s Alan Turing in the opening moments of this handsomely engrossing and poignantly melancholic thriller from Norwegian director Morten Tyldum. There’s little chance of doing anything else as Tyldum, who directed the tonally divergent Headhunters, serves up rollicking code-cracking wartime thrills laced with an astringent cyanide streak – a tale of plucky British ingenuity underpinned by an acknowledgement that Turing, as Gordon Brown put it, “deserved so much better”.

Granted a posthumous royal pardon for his “gross indecency” conviction only last year, the mathematician and AI pioneer changed the course of the war only to suffer the indignities of arrest and “chemical castration”, dying in 1954 having apparently taken a bite from a poisoned apple.

Yet The Imitation Game is not a tragedy – rather, it is a celebration of Turing’s extraordinary achievements, a populist yarn that makes an admirably firm fist of establishing its spiky subject as a heroic outsider. As the mantra from Graham Moore’s catchy script puts it: “Sometimes it is the people whom no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”

Reluctantly recruited by Commander Alastair Denniston (a witheringly supercilious Charles Dance) to join the country’s top minds at Bletchley Park in 1939, Cumberbatch’s appropriately indecipherable “odd duck” bumbles his way into Churchill’s confidence, securing funding to build a proto-computer (or “Bombe”) to crack the Germans’ daily changing Enigma code.

Meanwhile, plucky Cambridge maths grad Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) uses her crossword-solving skills to earn a place on Turing’s team and (unusually) in his affections. As the cogs of his Heath Robinsonesque creation whir, Turing struggles impotently to decode the signals of human interaction, the secret of his sexuality and the spectre of a lost childhood friend becoming talismanic ghosts in the machine.

Expanding upon the temporal shifts structure of Hugh Whitemore’s 1986 play Breaking the Code (adapted by the BBC in 1996, with Derek Jacobi reprising his starring role as Turing), Graham Moore’s dextrous screenplay skips between three distinct periods: Turing’s schooldays, wherein he tells close friend Christopher that people are like cryptographic puzzles; his time at Bletchley park, and the nail-biting adventures of the celebrated “Hut 8”; and the aftermath of the 1952 break-in at Turing’s Manchester home, which alerted the police to his homosexuality, with appalling consequences.

Historical liberties taken in the pursuit of drama range from the inevitable to the controversial (biographer Andrew Hodges, on whose book this is based, has complained that “they have built up the relationship with Joan”, suggesting a coyness about Turing’s true sexuality), with occasional false steps of all too convenient overstatement (placing the brother of a key code-breaker on board a doomed ship).

Yet for the most part, truth is sacrificed for the greater good of engaging cinema; Turing’s real-life “Bombe” may have been encased in a neat Bakelite box, but the audience needs to see its wires spreading out like entrails, mapping the complexities of its creator’s mind.

Crucially, Tyldum does not underplay the romance that blossoms between Alan and his machine, whose lovelorn nickname suggests that it has somehow become his bride of Frankenstein (“You are a monster!” Joan tells him when angry). The film’s very title refers to a game posited by Turing to deduce whether one was speaking to a man, woman or machine – a forerunner of the Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner to which this owes a greater debt than such apparently comparable fare as 2001’s Enigma .

Just as Deckard fell for the android Rachael, so Turing is enraptured not by people but by an artificial intelligence. Both he and his machine are struggling to understand coded communications for which they have no instinctive key, strangers in a strange land, searching for a common language.

With such an alienated antihero it would be easy for The Imitation Game to fall into either arch chilliness or mechanical contrivance. Plaudits, then, to Cumberbatch for making his protagonist complex rather than just complicated. While the lines of the film are bold, clear and concise, Cumberbatch keeps Turing’s true motives and emotions so enigmatically concealed that at one point you wonder whether he really is a Soviet spy. Top marks, too, to rising star Alex Lawther, who is quite brilliant as the young Alan, perfectly paving the way for the tortured insularity of Cumberbatch’s performance.

While Turing remains enticingly unreadable, his coterie of friends and colleagues is rendered in immediately identifiable vignettes, precisely cast, efficiently played. The mercurial Mark Strong is terrific as Major General Stewart Menzies, the é minence grise who intertwines menace and magnanimity with mesmerising ease. Matthew Goode is on home ground as “bit of a cad” Hugh Alexander, with whom everyone is understandably infatuated.

As for Knightley, while her role may tend somewhat toward brainy posh-girl caricature (the exclamation “Oh!” becomes “Ay-o!”), she manages to breathe warmth and humanity into the character of Joan, a likable foil to the impenetrable Turing, her affectionate gaze mediating our response to his perpetually unbreakable enigma.

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'The Imitation Game' review: turning Alan Turing's life into a code-breaking thriller

Sit back and watch benedict cumberbatch play another genius.

By Jacob Kastrenakes
on November 21, 2014 11:45 am

We all want to know what it’s like to be a genius. That seems to be the big appeal of going to see a movie about one, and there happens to be two this month alone — both focusing on hugely important British scientists. The latest is about Alan Turing, a mathematician who was among the early pioneers of computer science. That might not sound all that glamorous, but his life was actually quite dramatic: he’s one of the most important World War II codebreakers and was later persecuted for his sexuality to a tragic end.

Turing’s life during World War II is the subject of The Imitation Game , a new movie from director Morten Tyldum. Tyldum is a relatively unknown director from Norway, and this is his first film in English. He frames The Imitation Game as a thriller, presenting the story of Turing, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, as he attempts to crack Germany's Enigma machine — an encryption device that’s preventing the Allies from reading any Nazi messages. It’s a story of espionage, just with math instead of guns.

But while the film broadly covers the process of breaking Enigma, the movie’s heart is really Turing himself. The film has two central mysteries — both expressed quite clearly to the viewer — and they’re exactly what you’d want to know walking into the theater: who is Alan Turing, and how did he crack one of the greatest encryption devices ever made?

On its own, the process of cracking Enigma is not very compelling. It’s a matter of engineering and drafting plans for machinery — abstract processes that don’t make for an engaging story. Instead, The Imitation Game turns to Turing himself to keep the process interesting. For one, Turing’s a genius, and it’s fascinating to learn how he operates. But it turns out that Turing is a pretty unusual guy, too. He’s removed and unsociable. He’s smarter than everyone else in the room, but sometimes, he just totally doesn’t get it. The Imitation Game lets us watch as Turing and those around him come to deal with how incapable he is of balancing his genius and his inability to get along with others. Ultimately, the challenge of cracking Enigma comes down to whether Turing can open up to his colleagues to get the help and fortitude that he needs, and that’s a conflict worth watching.

There’s also another defining struggle of Turing’s life: that he is a gay man at a time when gay sex is illegal. This is presented as an underlying challenge for Turing in this film — something that he is not always contending with, but is often present — and it is naturally a critical aspect of Turing to explore given his conviction for "indecency" later in life.

The Imitation Game explores this in a few different ways. The first is in Turing’s growing friendship with Joan Clarke, played by Keira Knightley, a fellow codebreaker who is among the few people that understand him. She’s able to do this because she, too, is often the odd one out: a woman in a man’s world, and someone who is doing far more incredible things than anyone expected of her. On her own, Clarke provides a wonderful, lighthearted aside to Turing’s seriousness. (She also throws down a man or two who’s too dumb to realize how smart she is, which is pretty great.) But mostly, she’s there to help us see into Turing, giving him the opportunity to talk to someone on his level. His interest in her is also a constant pressure on him, slowly forcing Turing to contend with the fact that he does not truly want to be with her romantically.

The movie also explores Turing and his struggles as a gay man by drawing comparisons between him and the machine that he’s building to crack Engima, neither being something that anyone else can fully understand. It’s funny, of course, because Turing’s most iconic idea is a test that asks you to tell the difference between a machine and a human. And, at least in the world of this film, Turing would perhaps be accidentally judged as a machine because he’s so strange. It ultimately makes for a weak and muddled metaphor, the point being that he’s actually human — just one a bit different than everyone else. The film uses that metaphor to espouse some feel-good sentiments that don’t play as well as it would like, but it’s still a clever enough way of giving insight into Turing.

The machine metaphor keeps going. In Turing’s mind, the war is about machines. Whenever the film cuts away from England to show the war, all we see are tanks, battleships, and submarines. It’s Turing’s machine versus theirs, and his is perhaps the most important of the war. Because of that, we see Turing grow obsessed with his own machine — it is the one thing he allows himself to grow an attachment to during his adult life. Only when something comes between the two of them does Turing really start to break down.

It’s in those moments of crisis that the film shines. Cumberbatch plays Turing as calm and poised, but it’s here that he’s suddenly free to give us his all. Otherwise, Cumberbatch presents Turing as the mystery that he’s supposed to be, at least for the sake of this film. He walks a fine line between genius and oddball, between commanding a conversation and blustering his way through one. Cumberbatch never lets us know what side Turing actually lands on, and that’s part of the fun.

Beyond that, the movie builds the intricate plot of a thriller all around Cumberbatch’s character. It’s no accident that this movie has the word "game" in its title — though we only sort of see the Imitation Game, a precursor to the Turing Test, played during the movie, just about everything else in it is framed as a puzzle or a game. Cracking Enigma is laid out with specific rules, and there are ticking clocks everywhere. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before — when one character asks for a six-month extension, you just know that he's going to hear back something along the lines of a stern "you've got six weeks" — but they all coalesce to form an ongoing sense of tension.

A lesser film would probably go so far as to explain that Turing is the true enigma that needs to be cracked. Fortunately, while that may be this film’s conceit, it is not so blunt with how it draws his character. Cumberbatch is thrown into the middle of a functional thriller and given the leeway to show us Turing and how a genius and a troubled man works. It’s pretty great to watch him do just that.

clock This article was published more than 9 years ago

‘The Imitation Game’ movie review: Benedict Cumberbatch passes the test as Alan Turing

Summoning all the Sherlockian eccentricity and superciliousness he can muster, Benedict Cumberbatch once again proves the go-to man for bringing vulnerability and warmth to a chilly, slightly off-putting intellectual oddball in "The Imitation Game," a handsome, if gently smoothed-over portrait of World War II cryptanalyst Alan Turing .

As the acknowledged grandfather of artificial intelligence, Turing helped create the modern-day computer. Even more important, his preternatural puzzle-solving and mathematical skills helped the Allies win World War II when, as part of a project run by Britain’s MI6, Turing invented a machine that cracked Germany’s seemingly unbreakable Enigma code. “The Imitation Game” chronicles Turing’s wartime efforts, its tale of brainy derring-do bookended by a postwar police investigation that revealed his homosexuality and resulted in his chemical castration and, eventually, suicide.

It's a tragic story made all the more so by the enormity of Turing's contributions not only to the war effort but to the technological advances of the 20th century. Gracefully directed by Morten Tyldum from a scrupulously accessible script by Graham Moore, "The Imitation Game" locates Turing within a familiar cinematic line of idiosyncratic geniuses (we recently met another in the person of Eddie Redmayne's Stephen Hawking ) whose gaffes and tics mask hidden philosophical wellsprings and primal wounds. In the filmmakers' telling, Turing's brilliance is somehow associated with his habit, as a schoolboy, of separating his vegetables into compulsively arranged color-coded piles. "Mother says I'm just an odd duck," he intones at one point. Those formative years also coincided with his first love, for a schoolmate named Christopher, whose spirit inspires Turing decades later when he constructs the box of whirring cogs, rotors and disks whose steady, metronomic clicks just might save millions of lives.

That Turing himself is a puzzle — and that he finds it so difficult to break the signs and social codes of his colleagues — are just two gentle ironies of "The Imitation Game," in which the more challenging technical and conceptual details of Turing's work are given far less emphasis than the emotional tug of his story and the thriller-like race against time with the Germans. Tyldum has assembled an outstanding group of actors to portray the intelligence officials and researchers who joined Turing at storied Bletchley Park during the war, including Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, Mark Strong as MI6 chief Stewart Menzies, and Matthew Goode and Allen Leech as fellow codebreakers to whom Turing feels unapologetically superior; he even suggests that the entire team be fired, so that he may use their salaries to work more efficiently. (Later, he brings them apples by way of an awkwardly proffered peace offering.)

The person Turing relates to best is Clarke, who as a woman isn’t allowed to see the classified material the men are working with, and whose struggles with sexism subtly mirror Turing’s own with homophobia. They make a poignant pair, each embodying the enormous social cost of irrational biases and hatreds, with Cumberbatch especially giving an otherwise tetchy, annoyingly arrogant character a welcome dose of humanizing sympathy. Viewers may get the sense that “The Imitation Game” leaves Turing’s essential mysteries intact, but they will nonetheless find even the most public contours his story ripe with drama, excitement and deeply affecting resonance.

PG-13. At Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema, Landmark’s E Street Cinema and Angelika Film Center Mosaic. Contains some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking. 114 minutes.

The Imitation Game (2014)

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DVD & Streaming

The Imitation Game

Drama , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

November 28, 2014
Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing; Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke; Matthew Goode as Hugh Alexander; Rory Kinnear as Detective Robert Nock; Allen Leech as John Cairncross; Matthew Beard as Peter Hilton; Charles Dance as Commander Denniston; Mark Strong as Stewart Menzies

Home Release Date

March 31, 2015
Morten Tyldum

Distributor

The Weinstein Company

Movie Review

Secrets haunt us like spirits half seen. They’re everywhere, it seems—behind closet doors and in secret drawers, redacted from memos and left out of meeting minutes, whisperings in our own minds. We lock our secrets behind thick walls of surreptitious silence, but still they sneak out sometimes. A dropped hint here, a mistake there. Even our very language—layered, coded—can give up the game, each inflection a clue, each gesture or twitch a tell.

Secrets are particularly pervasive in wartime, and Nazi Germany during World War II has a slew of them. Troop movements, bombing runs and weather reports are all hidden in plain sight—behind the mighty wall of Enigma, Hitler’s beautifully complex code machine. Each day the Germans fire off hundreds of missives—perfectly legible for those who have the day’s special code, but perfect gibberish for those listening in. Each day the code changes. Even if someone cracks Enigma one day—a nearly impossible task in itself, given the 159 million million million potential settings to the machine—there’s a new code to solve the next.

But the Brits are feverishly working to crack Enigma anyway, and they’ve brought in a stellar team of cryptographic all-stars to do it. Alan Turing—a brilliant but socially slovenly mathematician—is among them. “I like solving problems,” he tells the stern Commander Denniston during his interview. “And Enigma is the most difficult problem in the war.” So confident is he in his abilities that he suggests firing the rest of the team and letting him work alone so they don’t slow him down.

“Popular at school, were we?” Denniston quips.

Since Enigma’s a machine, Turing reasons, why not build a machine to understand it? Why not build a machine that can read and solve any encrypted message from Germany almost instantly? Sure, it sounds improbable, even impossible. It’s the 1940s, not the 1990s. But Turing insists it can be done. He believes, given a little time and a lot of money (and maybe even help from his team), he can force the Nazis to spill their secrets.

But Turing has secrets of his own. And they may undo everything.

[ Spoilers are contained in the following sections. ]

Positive Elements

The Imitation Game is based on the true story of Alan Turing and the other cryptographers stationed at Bletchley Park (a super-secret locale in England that masqueraded as a radio factory). It’s no spoiler to say that Turing and his team were indeed successful in cracking Enigma, and the secrets they learned were instrumental in winning World War II. According to a closing slide, Turing’s work shortened the war by two years and saved 14 million lives. That makes Turing and his team bona fide, if unlikely, heroes. The fact that Turing’s machine became the basis for the computer? Well, that’s just icing on the silicon cake.

They faced some serious obstacles, too. Joan, one of Turing’s main confidants (and, for a time, fiancée), is a woman who joins the whiz team despite societal, familial and sexist pressures to be a secretary. And when the government wants to shut down the computer project, Turing’s colleagues, at the risk of their jobs, rally around their prickly boss to buy them all another month.

Let me bring up one more element here that, while not categorically positive, can spark some really thoughtful, positive discussion: When the team finally breaks Enigma’s web of codes, they’re presented with a first-class ethical dilemma. They can immediately save a convoy filled with hundreds of people, including women and children and even a brother of one of the code breakers. But they know that if they do, the Germans will realize Enigma’s been compromised … and immediately alter all of their communications.

They eventually let the convoy go down, and Turing formulates a ruthless but arguably necessary formula of when to act on Enigma’s secrets—enough to help in sometimes dramatic ways but not so obviously that the Germans get suspicious. “[Our job] is not to save one convoy,” Turing says. “Our job is to win the war.” Undoubtedly, those decisions and actions (and inactions) cost lives. But they also saved lives—a fact that Joan reminds Turing of after the war. She rattles off the people she met that day who would likely be dead had they not done what they did.

Spiritual Elements

When the team cracks Enigma and realizes that they now know the exact location of every ship in the war, cryptographer Hugh Alexander says he believes their little five-member team now has more power than God. The same sentiment is later echoed by Turing. “God didn’t win the war,” he says. “We did.”

A Soviet spy uses a Bible verse—Matthew 7:7—as the basis for a coded message he sends.

Sexual Content

It becomes known to some of his peers and eventually the world that Alan Turing had actively adopted a homosexual lifestyle. We see flashbacks of him as a bullied schoolboy, befriended by another boy named Christopher. The two become quite close and, while it never appears their relationship went beyond friendship, Turing writes a coded note to Christopher confessing his love. Christopher never gets the note, but the relationship was so formative that Turing nicknames his Enigma-cracking machine “Christopher.”

He asks Joan to marry him primarily because he wants her to stay on the team. (Joan is about to go back home because she’s a 25-year-old single woman, and her parents think it’s high time she concentrate on marriage.) When Turing reveals his sexual predilections, she’s not overly surprised and suggests they get married anyway. “We’ll have each other’s company,” she says. “We’ll have each other’s minds. That’s a better marriage than most.” Turing ultimately rejects the idea.

He admits that he’s had affairs with other men before working on the Enigma project. Then, in 1951, his secret unspools in public when a would-be thief is revealed to be Turing’s lover. Police call Turing and his lover “poofs,” expressing disgust. Turing, questioned by the authorities, admits that he had asked another man to touch him sexually. Because homosexuality is a crime, he’s subsequently convicted of “gross indecency” and given a choice between going to prison or undergoing hormonal therapy, the latter being designed to either curb or deaden his sexual urges. He chooses what he calls “chemical castration,” even though it makes him shake so violently he can’t even complete a crossword puzzle.

Conversely, Hugh is the team’s womanizer. He flirts with Joan and one of her friends, and he quips about going to bed with a woman. He tells a story that ribaldry implies that someone was giving him oral sex.

Violent Content

In flashback, we see classmates stuff a young Turing underneath floorboards, hammer down the wood on top of him and then stomp and dance over the screaming boy. Only when Turing clamps down on his fear do the boys lose interest. (Christopher rescues him.) Someone punches Turing in the face. Joan slaps him. Hugh throws things at Turing’s machine, and Turing tries to protect his creation with his body.

British citizens take shelter in a tube station during a German air raid. When they come topside again, much of the area is smoking rubble. We see other brief images of war, both in real war footage and via CGI.

Turing scoops powdered cyanide off the floor in the wake of a robbery, warning the bobbies looking on to not breathe. (It’s a bit of historical foreshadowing: Turing committed suicide following his hormonal therapy, and while the movie doesn’t say so, he died by cyanide poisoning.)

Crude or Profane Language

“Bloody” is thrown around 15 or 20 times. We hear a handful each of “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.” “B-llocks” and “b–tard” are used once or twice. God’s name is misused a dozen or so times, and Jesus’ is abused two or three.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Turing and others light up cigarettes frequently; it’s a rare scene that doesn’t feature smoke curling up. He and his teammates hang out at an on-base club, drinking wine or beer.

Other Negative Elements

Turing insults people regularly, seriously alienating many of them.

Turing believes that machines like his can “think,” just doing it differently than people. And when you “talk” with one or the other, even if you can’t see them, you can deduce by the responses whether you’re talking to a human or a computer. He calls this questioning an “Imitation Game.” And he suggests that he—with his hyperlogical, socially maladroit mind and his sexual deviancies from the norm—shares some similarities with the “different” computers. When he’s arrested for his homosexual contacts, he invites a questioning inspector to play the Imitation Game with him and reveals for the first time, apparently, his role in the war.

“Am I a war hero?” Turing asks. “Or am I a criminal?”

The Imitation Game asks us the same question. And in doing so can be quite challenging. It’s easy for us to embrace certain convictions when there is no face involved, no person we must look in the eye. It’s easy to hold to the truth that homosexuality is a sin when we don’t know such a sinner.

The Imitation Game asks us to get to know one—a sinner, a homosexual, a war hero. Propelled by a remarkable performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, we keenly feel Turing’s “abnormality” as he goes through life, how different he feels, how alienated. We hurt for him. And we are, on some level, appalled by the treatment he receives.

We know what the Bible says about homosexuality. It speaks not in code, but clearly. And we must therefore grapple with the tension between its truth and the grace it also extends through Christ.

We are all made in the image of God. We are His treasured creations, to be treated with respect and honor and, above all, love.

Alan Turing was not so treated.

Is he a war hero? Emphatically yes , and we should rightly celebrate his work and achievements. The societal peace most of us live in the midst of, right along with the machine I write this review on and the machine you’re reading it on, are all descendants of Mr. Turing’s brilliance.

Was he a criminal? We do not need to nor should we honor or embrace everything about Turing. His choices. He actions. But the movie reminds us that we should not hesitate to embrace Turing himself—to not just value him as a exceptional mind or courageous war hero, but to greet him (in this postmortem theatrical context, as a way of teaching ourselves to greet all of our fellow men) as a fallen creature just like us, a creation of our God Most High.

Our faith is about looking up, not looking down.

The Imitation Game is a well-made, well-acted, thought-provoking film. Certainly its subject matter makes it a difficult one, and its snide dismissals of God don’t help. But there’s value here, especially in the urgent reminders that we don’t have to choose solely between hero and criminal.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Movie Review: The Imitation Game (2014)

Howard Schumann
Movie Reviews
7 responses
--> December 29, 2014

“Sometimes, it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one imagines”

Mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing experiences both triumph and tragedy in Norwegian director Morton Tydlum’s The Imitation Game , the true story of a man whose help in breaking the Nazi’s Enigma Code during World War II may have brought the war to an earlier end. Lauded by Winston Churchill as being the man who made the greatest single contribution to the war effort, the film is both a celebration of Turing’s life and an infuriating look at the circumstances that turned him from a hero into a pariah. Based on the book Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges with a screenplay by Graham Moore and a haunting score by Alexandre Desplat, the film unfolds as both a biography and an intriguing adventure story with key moments in his life depicted in flashbacks.

Shown are Turing’s troubling days in boarding school, his time working for the British government at Bletchley Park during World War II as part of a team of code breakers, and the post-war years when Turing, a gay man, was investigated for what was then the crime of “gross indecency” by the police. Most of the film deals, however, with Turing’s uphill struggle to break the Enigma Code with altering ups and downs of excitement and disappointment. As brilliantly portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch (“ The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug ”) who brings richness and complexity to the role, Turing is a brilliant but highly eccentric individual whose aloof personality is off-putting to his superiors and his co-workers.

These include chess champion Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), and Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard) as the team members. Only Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley, “ Anna Karenina ”), whom Turing chooses by placing an ad in the newspapers, and Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong, “ Anna ”), a high-level Intelligence operative, see Turing in a positive light with Knightley brightening up the film considerably with her warmth and general cheerfulness. Exasperated by the slowness of the effort to break the case, the military commander in charge of the operation (Charles Dance) is anxious to fire him. It is only when after Turing gets the go ahead from Churchill that he is provided funding for the machine he needs and is placed in charge of the project.

We do not find out why he names the machine “Christopher” until the film, in one of its best and most affecting sequences, revisits his days at boarding school in the 1920s. Bullied by his peers, the teenage Turing (Alex Lawther) develops a supportive relationship with classmate Christopher (Jack Bannon), also a brilliant mathematics student. Their close friendship is handled with exquisite sensitivity by Tydlum and the depiction of its ending is truly heartbreaking. After months of frustration and disappointment, the exhilaration is palpable when a breakthrough is achieved, but the celebration is short-lived when it is realized that it is necessary to be very selective in how they use the information in order to prevent the Germans from switching to a different code.

Sadly, in that process, they have to choose who lives and who dies, and the brother of Peter, the youngest member of the team, is one of those sacrificed. The final segment of the film returns to the police interrogation where Turing reveals to policeman (Rory Kinnear) his participation in the wartime effort which was classified for fifty years and asks him whether he is a war hero or a criminal. The response does not bring credit on the police, the law that was enforced, or the British government. Although Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his services in 1945 and was officially pardoned by Queen Elizabeth in 2013, The Imitation Game convincingly makes clear that an unjust law not only destroyed one of the best minds of the century, but damaged all of us.

Tagged: code , novel adaptation , spy , WWII

I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.

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'Movie Review: The Imitation Game (2014)' have 7 comments

December 29, 2014 @ 5:10 pm Kowolski

Well told and heartbreaking.

December 29, 2014 @ 5:50 pm guardiandeveloper

I didn’t get the point of Keira Knightley’s character. Was she really a part of the codebreaking team or added to placate feminists?

December 29, 2014 @ 8:06 pm allthedrones

Feminists should be angry – Bletchley Park was something like 85% women. Reducing their war contributions to a single woman is a slap to their face.

December 29, 2014 @ 6:15 pm Telrick

Bit of a bore. Watching a guy be a condescending prick to other condescending pricks isn’t my cup o tea.

December 29, 2014 @ 8:39 pm Phreeze

Powerful performance by Cumberbatch. It’s too bad for him Keaton is going to win the gold for Birdman. Any other year he’d be a lock to win.

December 29, 2014 @ 9:27 pm GREG

Good movie. Much better than the other sciencey biopic everyone seems to love, ‘Theory of Everything’.

December 30, 2014 @ 12:11 pm Dracarys

Another historically inaccurate whitewash.

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Deep Focus: The Imitation Game

By Michael Sragow on November 26, 2014

The Imitation Game is a tremendously engaging work of historical fiction about Alan Turing, the British mathematical genius who was key to cracking the military codes of the Nazis’ “unbreakable” Enigma machine. Unlike self-consciously unconventional biopics, The Imitation Game melds fact and invention with lucidity and sweep. The movie time-jumps among three periods in Turing’s life: his misfit schoolboy days, his top-secret service as a trailblazing code-breaker, and, a half-dozen years after the war, his arrest for “gross indecency” as a gay man because of homophobic laws. In his first English-language film, Norwegian director Morten Tyldum (best known for the sardonic thriller Headhunters ) forges the three-prong structure as firmly as the tines on a trident. Played as a boy by Alex Lawther and as a man by Benedict Cumberbatch (both are brilliant), Turing becomes heroic because he strives to maintain his integrity in a world eager to exploit his gifts without accepting him . The sections snap together to form a crackling, tragicomic vision of a complex protagonist.

It’s easy to overrate a dreary, expository drama like the best-known telling of Turing’s story, Hugh Whitemore’s play and teleplay Breaking the Code , in which every line is factual and few are captivating. It’s even easier to underestimate the care and intelligence that go into transforming a portrait of an alienated intellectual into a movie as exciting as The Imitation Game . Without making a fuss, director Tyldum and Graham Moore, in his first produced script, introduce and vary their themes in a pop-symphonic way. The scenes set at Sherbourne School in Dorset root Turing’s belief that people like violence “because it feels good” in terrible incidents of hazing, and dramatize the way his outsider status and possible Asperger’s syndrome fuel his fascination with cryptography. Turing’s one pal, Christopher Morcom (Jack Bannon), describes it as the science of “messages that anyone can see, but no one knows what they mean, unless you have the key. ” Turing asks: “How is that different from talking?” (Young Alan goes on to explain: “When people talk to each other, they never say what they mean. They say something else. And you’re supposed to just know what they mean. Only, I never do.”) While foreshadowing Turing’s conquest of Enigma, these scenes movingly suggest that Turing’s one close friendship triggers his interest in human and mechanical brains. In the film’s most emotionally charged conceit, Turing names both his massive code-breaking device and his attempt to create a “universal” machine—or computer—“Christopher.”

As an adult, Turing turns his own personal logic into a complete and sometimes self-destructive modus operandi. At the government’s code-breaking capital, Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, his intense tunnel vision and intellectual super-confidence instantly annoy the military chief, Cdr. Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance). He is about to end “the shortest job interview in British military history” when Turing stops him by proclaiming the Enigma codes nothing more than a puzzle he can solve. Turing confounds his more traditional teammates (including Matthew Goode as championship chess player Hugh Alexander) with his disdain for social niceties. Goode puts a snide/suave spin on the unsolicited advice: “You know, to pull off this irascible genius routine, you actually have to be a genius.” But everything about Turing intrigues MI6 chief Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong), who pegs the mathematician as a man who can keep secrets.

The military-intelligence scenes derive edgy comedy from the friction between this eccentric Cambridge intellectual and the strictures of life during wartime. Tyldum and company also summon turbulent emotion from the building of an offbeat (if fleeting) esprit de corps among the games-players and numbers men who make up Turing’s final team—including one woman, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), his peer and confidante and, briefly, his betrothed. The claustrophobia of their confidential mission, the antagonism of their higher-ups, and their irreverence as they strive to unpack all of Enigma’s mysteries bring the pressure-cooker tension and gallows humor of a POW adventure to the code-breaking sequences. Like Turing’s sophisticated machines—including the one that cracks Enigma codes—these scenes accomplish multiple tasks with startling rapidity. Among other things, they compel Turing to devise strategies that sacrifice some lives to save many others. By the end he confronts the violence he knows—a force that makes people feel good—and the violence he doesn’t know: the kind used as political tools by friend and foe alike.

Turing tells Clarke: “It is the very people who no one else imagines anything of who do the things that no one else can imagine.” He coins that aphorism when persuading her to come to Bletchley Park despite her experience with institutional chauvinism. Turing’s offhand wisdom replicates a dominant theme of Marcel Ophuls’s The Sorrow and the Pity : that loners and pariahs were most likely to rise up against authority to save society at large. The Imitation Game rouses patriotic fervor in a sly and semi-subversive way. It roots the defeat of global fascism in the war efforts of a handful of crossword enthusiasts hunched over papers and wires. Clarke later repeats the line about “people who no one else imagines anything of” doing “things that no one else can imagine” after Turing has accepted, as punishment for his “crime,” hormone treatments that unman him in more ways than one. Suddenly, words that could have been the tagline for an “inspirational” melodrama take on a terrible irony. The country that benefited from his impossible accomplishment has criminalized him because of his sexual orientation.

In the early-1950s part, the movie concocts an Everyman policeman, Investigating Detective Robert Nock (Rory Kinnear), who is put off by Turing’s casual insults and intrigued by the erasure of his war records. He has no idea that he’ll cause a mathematical eminence to be charged with gross indecency: He thinks he’s uncovering a Soviet spy ring. Only midway do we realize that Nock’s interrogation of Turing frames the entire the film. It’s to Nock that Turing articulates his essential plea: “A machine is different from a human being; hence it would think differently. The interesting question is, just because something thinks differently from you, does that mean it’s not thinking?” Turing is not speaking only about machines.

If there’s a prime auteur to this film, I’d say it’s the screenwriter, Moore, who earlier wrote the winning 2008 pastiche novel The Sherlockian , marrying the historical characters of Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker to his own wild riffs on an actual, contemporary Sherlock Holmes–themed murder case. In The Imitation Game he meshes hard-edged characters, true occurrences, and dramatic fabrications with similar éclat. He even inserts a notorious Soviet spy into Turing’s code-breaking group. It’s a typically bold Moore touch, unexpected but never arbitrary: it trenchantly underlines the risks of ideological wrestling among allies.

Tyldum has visualized the script with density and verve. It’s no small accomplishment to conjure titanic cataclysms in flashes of the same muddy armies and bomb-packed planes that Turing mocks, or to mold Turing and Clarke’s lonely figures so that you can feel the burden of their shared knowledge while they trek to MI6 in London. Tyldum and his cinematographer, Oscar Faura, recall John Boorman’s Hope and Glory as they light and color wartime England to evoke a time of heightened feeling. Most important, Tyldum has handled the cast impeccably—they act with veracity and dash. Dance is nonpareil at being imperious, Strong balances charm with menace, and Goode creates a brainy version of a hail-fellow-well-met as a chess champion and ladies’ man. Even better, Knightley depicts Clarke as a shrewd judge of character and a middle-class woman of the world—for her time. This heroine’s artless intellectual ardor is unlike anything Knightley has done before. In Clarke’s heart-to-hearts with Turing, she merges passion and compassion.

Lawther and Cumberbatch come through with critically acute performances—they fold into each other as seamlessly as Hugh O’Conor and Daniel Day-Lewis did in My Left Foot. Lawther’s Alan is more than a persecuted wonk. His glimmers of mischief and tenderness, along with his mental strength, indicate a complicated sensibility. Cumberbatch brings it to fruition with a portrayal of idiosyncratic genius that bears little resemblance to the actor’s “functioning sociopath” Sherlock or narcissistic Julian Assange.

The linchpin to Cumberbatch’s Turing is his sensitivity. Though ruthless in pursuit of intellectual goals, he registers anxiety—within and without—in the high-pitched register of his voice and the signal flashes of his eyes. Because of Cumberbatch’s élan, Turing’s implacability is magnetic and his mental dexterity thrilling. But that’s not what makes this performance extraordinary. In The Imitation Game , Cumberbatch conveys Turing’s continuous aching to put thoughts into code and his soul into words. He expresses the inexpressible.

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The Imitation Game Review

14 Nov 2014

113 minutes

Imitation Game, The

Morten Tyldum's last movie was Headhunters, a slick, sick and witty thriller that suggested a solid future in Hollywood despatching the likes of Mark Wahlberg and Liam Neeson down dark American alleyways in pursuit of smirking Eurovillains. And yet here we find the Norwegian director only a little further west, dealing with cut-glass Queen’s English accents, cucumber-sandwich picnics on immaculate lawns, and a very Union-Jack-bunting story of polite wartime triumph.

On the surface, The Imitation Game is the kind of crisp, British prestige piece you could suspect of cashing in on Downton fever (one character is played by Allan Leech, aka Tom Branson), while passing off TV’s Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) in the guise of another stand-offish, mystery-solving genius. But if you know even a little about Alan Turing, you’ll know not to trust such a smooth surface. You’ll also understand that Tyldum’s latest film — from a script on the 2011 Black List — isn’t such a crazily far cry from the murky, pacy Headhunters.

Tyro screenwriter Graham Moore couldn’t have made a more impressive debut. It’s a tight and wiry plot with barely an ounce of fat on its bones. There is a gripping rhythm to it, each scene a loud finger-snap which draws you back and forth between a trio of elegantly entwined narrative strands: 1) Turing’s arrival at Hut 8 in Bletchley Park and his cerebrally Herculean efforts to crack the ever-mutating Enigma code, by which German U-boats communicated; 2) the 1951 police investigation into the professor for his homosexuality, which was then still criminal in the UK; 3) Turing’s schoolboy years in the late ’20s, where he had to contend with both vicious bullying and forbidden love.

At times there are concessions to convention, on-the-nose scenes which feel like they’re pushing a neat point rather than relaying reality (putting a Bletchley codebreaker’s sibling on a suddenly doomed battleship, for example), while certain historical facts, such as the Polish influence on the mechanics of British wartime cryptanalysis, are overlooked.

Yet all this is hard to berate. Compare The Imitation Game with 2001’s Enigma, another Bletchley-based thriller (a fictionalisation of the cypher-cracking efforts by Turing’s team), and it’s like racing a thoroughbred against an asthmatic nanny-goat — almost embarrassing how much better this is, despite Enigma’s Michael Apted/Tom Stoppard/Robert Harris pedigree. Moore’s opening line, spoken by Cumberbatch, is, “Are you paying attention?” After a few minutes you’ll realise it’s virtually impossible not to.

The key to The Imitation Game’s success is the way it seamlessly combines its thriller and biopic elements: the story of Turing, it posits, is the story of the Enigma codebreaking. If you leave him out of it you might as well be making U-571. There’s more, too. It’s also, in part, the story of the birth of artificial intelligence (Turing being the bona fide genius whose ‘Turing machine’ pre-empted the computer), and a platonic love story which deals with Turing’s very real relationship with fellow cryptanalyst Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). Plus, amid all its talk of crosswords and algorithms, there are four puzzles happening at once: 1) the main puzzle of the code, which is energised by the fact that every attempt to crack it before the Nazis change it up is a desperate, matter-of-life-and-death race against the clock; 2) the puzzle of the Soviet spy who may or may not number among Hut 8’s workers; 3) the puzzle of the 1951 reported break-in to the inscrutable professor’s home in Manchester, during which nothing was stolen; 4) the puzzle of Alan himself — who is this “odd duck”? What makes him tick? Why is he so rude? “The problem,” he narrates of his childhood, “began with the carrots...”

... And ends, in 1954, with a cyanide-laced apple. There is tragedy at both ends of the chronology, and connecting them is Benedict Cumberbatch, delivering his finest big-screen performance yet. He seethed as the übermenschy Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, he roared as the vainglorious Smaug in the last Hobbit movie, but here he folds in on himself and buttons that dark-tinged charisma right down. It might not be an entirely accurate portrayal (the real Turing doesn’t appear to have been quite so walled-in), yet Cumberbatch’s almost paradoxical blend of supreme self-confidence and intense shyness rings true, especially in the way the peerless logician’s mind of his Turing can’t always process the confusions of human interaction (“People talking never say what they mean”).

Turing didn’t have the easiest professional relationship with his military superiors and Cumberbatch clearly relishes those moments in the script where Moore milks this for dramatic effect. The first encounter between Turing and Bletchley’s Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance, giving it a bit of Tywin) must rank as one of cinema’s most delicious job interview scenes: “Are you a bloody pacifist?!” Denniston seethes incredulously, after Turing displays his customary lack of tact. In Cumberbatch’s sure hands, Turing is less a force of nature than a passionate force of logic and integrity — a bold and beautiful mind. He displays far more than an Oscar-baiting repertoire of tics and twitches. There is a bright, burning inner life in evidence, too, taking us beyond the flashbacks, flash-forwards and neat dialogue beats. It’s a tough thing to perform, but Cumberbatch aces it.

Is it a complete portrayal? No. The fact that Turing’s close friendship with Joan Clarke is given more prominence than his homosexual relationships has already elicited disapproving tuts. His further, post-War work on computers is skimmed over. But does it need to be complete? Again, we return to the core strength of Tyldum’s film: that it pursues the dramatic twists and turns while exploring the man. It remains a supremely impressive balancing act, and no less a tribute to a truly great Briton for that.

Turing wasn’t granted a pardon for his ‘crime’ until last year. That it’s taken so long for a fitting cinematic testament to his brilliance is very much mitigated by the fact that The Imitation Game is one of the most entertaining and engaging films of the year so far.

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The Imitation Game

Dove review.

“The Imitation Game” features strong performances from the two leads: Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, a genius mathematician, and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, another genius who finishes a difficult crossword puzzle in less than six minutes and wins a place on Turing’s code team. It took Turing eight minutes to do the same puzzle. His team is created to crack Enigma, the German code that is used to transmit their messages during World War ll.

The story is intelligently written and witty. During banter at the beginning of the movie between Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) and Turing, we get some humorous exchanges. Denniston: “Your background?” Turing: “I’m a mathematician.” Denniston: “How could I have guessed?” Turing: “You didn’t. You just read it in the report.”

The plot deals with historically accurate incidents and chronicles the aloofness of Turing and yet his brilliant attempts to create a machine that would crack the German transmission codes. Knightley is also powerful in her role as Joan Clarke, the woman who helps him in this quest and is engaged to him for a time. The lives that were saved due to his creative genius and—without plot-spoiling too much—the fact that the war was shortened by at least two years, are impressive. The film states that his machine was the forerunner of today’s computers. Regrettably, the movie contains strong language and we are unable to award it our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal.

Dove Rating Details

Sounds of bombs exploding and bombs are seen dropped from planes; an unpopular boy in school has a plate of vegetables poured over his head; boy is nailed under a floor before another boy frees him; man is punched; man is seen with missing leg from the war; woman slaps man; it's stated that many people have died at the hands of the Germans during the war.

Man admits to having affairs with other men; oral sex innuendo; a "taking her to bed" comment; comment about man wanting a boy to touch his male organ.

Ch*ist-1; JC-1; G/OMG-8; For G's Sake-1; Good G-1; For the love of G-1; Good Lord-1; D**n You-1; Go To H-1; H-2; Bloody-10; D-5; B-3; A-2; Term for the male organ-1; Idiots-1; "Insufferable sod"-1.

Cigarette smoking in several scenes; lit cigarette seen in ash tray; drinking and bar scenes in several scenes.

Kids seen wearing gas masks during the war; character is gay and this was considered scandalous during that time and man's career is in jeopardy; the terms "poofter" and "poof" are used referring to gays; in a clip a woman is seen eating from garbage can during the war; tension and disagreements between characters; a few comments that some viewers won't like such as "God didn't end the war, we did," and in a room where men attempt to crack German code God is mentioned and man says, "I don't think even He has the power we do in this room right now!"

More Information

Film information, dove content.

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THE IMITATION GAME

"a dull adaptation of a complex man".

What You Need To Know:

(HH, HoHo, PCPC, Fe, B, P, ABAB, LL, V, S, A, D, M) Strong bleak humanist worldview with no hope or redemption where main character is a homosexual, with politically correct tone, plus some feminist concerns, plus light moral, patriotic values in the main characters desire to end World War II and their resolve to do it through teamwork, but Anti-Christian content as a traitor among the Allies is a Christian and main character says, “God didn’t win the war, we did”; four obscenities and 13 profanities; some implied war violence with some bombardment aftermath shown, a man is punched; some vulgar, though vague, sexual references and main character is a homosexual; no nudity; moderate drinking; smoking; and, lying and moral relativism.

More Detail:

THE IMITATION GAME is fascinating, but stilted, historical drama about the life of Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who helped end World War II, but was eventually charged with gross indecency because of his homosexuality. This led to his eventual suicide.

Beginning in 1952, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) reports a burglary in his home, though nothing is seemingly stolen. An investigator suspects Turing is hiding something, so he decides to dig deeper. After coming up empty-handed, the investigator decides to bring Alan in for questioning hoping to get some answers. Turing obliges him.

In 1939, Turing applies for a secret job at Buckinghamshire, England. An experienced mathematician and cryptographer, Turing gets the job. Cdr. Alastair Denniston explains that the Allied Forces have failed to crack Germany’s National Socialists Enigma machine, which encrypts all of Germany’s communications.

Turing, along with five other men, have been selected to crack the Enigma under the supervision of MI6, and hopefully end the war. Turing refuses to be a team player, however. Instead, he pursues his own plan to engineer an electro-mechanical code breaking machine that can decipher all the potential code variations. Overstepping his bounds by sending a letter to Winston Churchill, Turing gets permission to fire certain team members and to pursue his costly, unprecedented plan.

With the help of MI6, Turing also brings in some help by putting a complex crosswords puzzle in the paper. Turing finds Joan Clarke, a brilliant and beautiful young woman to help him. As stress mounts to get the machine working before the government shuts him down, he’s forced to reveal to Joan, his now fiancé, that’s he’s a homosexual.

In further flashbacks, the movie shows Turing as a 15-year-old schoolboy who struggles with being different and starts developing feelings for his best friend Christopher, who encourages him while being bullied.

THE IMITATION GAME is tragic in more ways than one. Alan Turing undeniably shortened the war and saved millions of lives. Additionally, the movie uses his unfortunate death as a statement for a leftist political agenda. In regards to his homosexuality, the British government wronged Turing in strong-arming him into undergoing chemical castration. Of course, the only real solution for the lust of the flesh and the pride of life is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Most of IMITATION GAME rightfully focuses on the mission of cracking the Enigma code. This, and Turing’s research, is by far the most compelling part of his legacy. Regretfully, the viewer doesn’t really get to see his legacy played out or pursued. Rather, the filmmakers veer into a confused conclusion regarding his sexuality. Turing’s motivations are never explored or explained. So, by the movie’s end, it’s clear that Turing himself was an Enigma of sorts. So, instead of truly trying to crack him, the filmmakers use his tragedy to push their own agenda. It’s also worth noting that many believe Turing didn’t commit suicide, but in fact poisoned himself accidentally since he regularly had cyanide at his home for scientific experiments.

Benedict Cumberbatch embraces the complexities of Turing and never lets the audience forget the man’s genius. Keira Knightley is well cast as the charming Joan Clarke, but ultimately, the role falls into a feministic cliché, and the script really doesn’t do her justice, even in regards to the sex discrimination she encountered as a woman. Jumping all over the place, the script never offers anything tangible and lacks real emotional pull. In the end, even the great performances can’t save THE IMITATION GAME. Some horrendous CGI of the war is ultimately the straw that breaks the camels back for this movie.

Other than some language, THE IMITATION GAME is fairly clean, and even offers some light positive messages, but its worldview is ultimately a confused mess.

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Best movies to watch on TV this weekend (May 24-27)

From Christopher Nolan's divisive thriller Tenet to Hugh Jackman's best Wolverine movie , these are the movies you shouldn't miss this weekend on TV.

preview for Tenet | Ending EXPLAINED, Time Inversion Unlocked, Unanswered Questions & more on Nolans masterpiece

Best movies on TV on Friday (May 24)

Best movies on tv on saturday (may 25), best movies on tv on sunday (may 26), best movies on tv on monday (may 27).

Hugh Jackman's best Wolverine movie, Christopher Nolan 's divisive thriller Tenet and South Korean erotic thriller The Handmaiden are among the best movies to watch on TV this weekend.

If you need a break from the very stressful and sometimes endless process of choosing movies, then Digital Spy 's Watch This franchise is here to help.

Rather than endlessly scroll on streaming platforms like Netflix , Disney+ and Apple TV+ , just go back to the basics – every weekend must-see movies are airing on the telly, and we can tell you the best ones.

Get your popcorn and drinks ready.

Best movies on TV (May 24-27)

Here are our picks for the best movies on TV this weekend ( May 24-27, 2024 ), all of them airing on Freeview channels like BBC, ITV, Film4 and Channel 4.

The Handmaiden

Oldboy 's Park Chan-wook directed this amazing erotic thriller , filled with plot twists and steamy scenes, in 2016. The Handmaiden is a must-see movie this weekend, or any other weekend.

Based on Sarah Waters's 2002 novel Fingersmith , changing the setting from Victorian-era Britain to Korea under Japanese colonial rule, the story follows an orphaned pickpocket (Kim Tae-ri) who joins a Korean con man (Ha Jung-woo) in order to seduce and steal from a wealthy Japanese woman (Kim Min-hee).

The Handmaiden airs on Saturday (May 25) at 1.05am on Film4.

Do The Right Thing

Spike Lee's critically-acclaimed 1989 movie is on TV this weekend, and it's one you should watch (at least) once in a lifetime. Starring Samuel L Jackson, Rosie Perez, Giancarlo Esposito, John Turturro and more, Do The Right Thing still resonates today.

Set in a Brooklyn neighbourhood during an extremely hot summer day, the movie follows the racial tensions that arise between the diverse communities coexisting in a small New York area, erupting into brutal violence.

Do The Right Thing airs on Sunday (May 26) at 12.20am on BBC Two.

Hugh Jackman is reprising his role as Wolverine in the upcoming MCU movie Deadpool & Wolverine , so it's the perfect time to catch his most recent appearance in the Marvel universe on TV. It was in Logan , which many fans consider one of the best superhero movies of all time.

With Dafne Keen stealing the spotlight as X-23 and Patrick Stewart reprising his role as Professor X, Logan follows Jackman's superhero as he is forced out of retirement to escort a young mutant to a safe place. However, an evil corporation gets in their way.

Logan airs on Sunday (May 26) at 9pm on E4.

Christopher Nolan won a bunch of Oscars this year thanks to Oppenheimer , but let's not forget one of his most recent and divisive works — Tenet is on TV this weekend, so it's time you watch it and pick a side.

Starring Robert Pattinson and John David Washington, the movie follows a group of agents trying to save the world from a devastating attack, which could lead to World War III. To prevent this, they'll have to learn to control time itself.

You might need to have a look at our ending explained of Tenet afterwards. It is complicated.

Tenet airs on Sunday (May 26) at 10pm on BBC Two.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

If you're a Spider-Man fan, this movie was like a dream come true. Spider-Man: No Way Home reunites three generations of Spider-Men (Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and MCU's Tom Holland) to save the world from destruction.

Also starring Zendaya and Willem Defoe, the movie starts when Holland's Peter Parker tries to turn back time and prevent his identity from being exposed (as we saw at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home ). However, Doctor Strange's spell goes wrong, and the multiverse starts to bleed into their reality.

Spider-Man: No Way Home airs on Monday (May 27) at 7.45pm on BBC One.

The Italian Job (6.50pm, Film4)

The Witches (7.25pm, BBC Three)

Three Thousand Years of Longing (9pm, Film4)

Meet the Parents (9pm, E4)

Horrible Bosses 2 (9pm, ITV2)

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (9pm, ITV4)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (9pm, 5STAR)

Late Night (10pm, BBC Three)

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A Banquet (11.10pm, Film4)

Dr No (11.15pm, ITV1)

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold (11am, Film4)

Kung Fu Panda (1.05pm, Film4)

Laura (1.45pm, BBC Two)

Stormbreaker (2.50pm, Film4)

Rush Hour 2 (3.10pm, 5STAR)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (4.35pm, Film4)

Turbo (5.10pm, ITV2)

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (6.45pm, E4)

I, Robot (6.50pm, Film4)

The Goonies (6.50pm, 5STAR)

Flash Gordon (6.50pm, ITV4)

Saving Private Ryan (9.25pm, Channel 4)

Close (9pm, BBC Four)

Jack Reacher (9pm, Film4)

American Gangster (9pm, 5STAR)

The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (10.15pm, ITV1)

Candyman (1992) (11.40pm, Film4)

Split (12.05am on Sunday, 5STAR)

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The Train Robbers (7.25pm, ITV4)

Logan (9pm, E4)

Men in Black: International (9pm, Film4)

The Commuter (9pm, 5STAR)

Late Night (9.45pm, BBC Three)

Tenet (10pm, BBC Two)

Lucy (11.05pm, ITV4)

Rams (11.15pm, Film4)

47 Meters Down: Uncaged (11.30pm, BBC One)

Saturday Night Fever (Midnight Sunday/Monday, Channel 4)

Memento (12.20am on Monday, BBC Two)

Annie (1982) (10.40am, Channel 4)

Ferdinand (11am, Film4)

Bridge to Terabithia (1.10pm, Film4)

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (3pm, ITV1)

Percy Jackson & the Lighnting Thief (3pm, Film4)

The Italian Job (4.50pm, More4)

10 Things I Hate About You (7.10pm, Film4)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (7.45pm, BBC One)

Flight (9pm, Film4)

Lethal Weapon 2 (9pm, 5STAR)

Hope & Glory (1987) (10pm, BBC Two)

The Invisible Man (10.25pm, ITV1)

Valkyrie (11.45pm, Film4)

The Road Dance (11.50pm, BBC Two)

The Guilty (2.05am on Tuesday, Film4)

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Deputy Movies Editor, Digital Spy Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over seven years, mostly for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas .

Her work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema in the UK.

She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service . During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world, and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. Now based in the UK, Mireia joined Digital Spy in June 2023 as Deputy Movies Editor.

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10 Best War Movies on Netflix, Ranked

Netflix has a vast library of movies and some of the best war movies like Hacksaw Ridge and The Darkest Hour are available there.

The war genre in cinema has always maintained its own kind of cult following. History buffs flock to the genre to consume as much historical content as possible, even though war films notoriously distort the truth in favor of entertainment. Action aficionados also seek out the war genre, hoping to witness epic battle set pieces and recreations of history's most infamous armed conflicts. The war genre has served many purposes over the years, working as both a prominent genre for propaganda and, on the other end of the spectrum, offering filmmakers an opportunity to examine political and social issues.

Currently, Netflix has a wide variety of war films that span multiple conflicts, including World War II, the Vietnam War, and the African Civil War. The war films available to view on Netflix cover a vast range of cinematic lineage, from classics such as The Guns of Navarone and Born on the Fourth of July to contemporary works like Beasts of No Nation and All Quiet on the Western Front .

10 The Woman King Tells the Story of the Agojie (2022)

The woman king.

*Availability in US

Not available

The Best Movies To Watch On Netflix Tonight

IMDb Rating: 6.9

Set in the 1820s, The Woman King focuses on the Agojie, an all-female military regiment that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries. Actress Maria Bello initially conceived the project in 2015 but struggled for years to find a studio willing to finance the film. Multiple studios declined to support the film, fearing the project had minimal box office potential. In 2018, the financial success of Black Panther ultimately convinced studio executives to greenlight The Woman King .

The Woman King received mostly positive reviews from critics, with many favorably comparing the movie to other acclaimed historical epics such as Braveheart and Gladiator . Critics also championed Viola Davis' performance, with some calling it one of the best of her career. However, the film did garner controversy over its historical inaccuracies. Overall, The Woman King won 28 awards out of 152 nominations. Despite the acclaim, The Woman King floundered at the box office, grossing under $100 million against a budget of $50 million.

9 Darkest Hour Earned Gary Oldman an Oscar for his Performance as Winston Churchill (2017)

Darkest hour.

In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler, or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.

10 Most Horrifying Scenes In War Movies

IMDb Rating: 7.4

One thing both critics and audiences can agree upon is that Gary Oldman is one of the most versatile actors of all time. Despite many considering him an icon of his generation, an Academy Award win eluded Oldman's illustrious resume. In 2016, Oldman signed up for yet another chameleonic role, this time transforming himself into Winston Churchill for the World War II biopic Darkest Hour . The film centers on Churchill as he contends with the 1940 British war cabinet crisis.

Oldman's dazzling performance finally earned him an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers lauded both Oldman's performance and the film as a whole, writing, "Get busy engraving Oldman's name on an Oscar... those fearing that Darkest Hour is nothing but a dull tableau of blowhard stuffed shirts will be relieved to know that they're in for a lively, provocative historical drama that runs on its own nonstop creative fire." In addition to Oldman's Oscar, Darkest Hour also won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling. These were just two of Darkest Hour's 54 award wins out of 135 nominations. Darkest Hour also emerged as a surprise box office hit, grossing over $150 million worldwide.

8 The Imitation Game Is a World War II Biographical Thriller About Alan Turing (2014)

The imitation game.

During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians while attempting to come to terms with his troubled private life.

IMDb Rating: 8.0

Based on the 1983 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, The Imitation Game is a World War II biographical thriller about Alan Turing, a cryptanalyst who helped the British crack German codes during the Second World War. Turing's work in theoretical computer science laid the foundation for the eventual creation of the general-purpose computer. A major subplot of The Imitation Game follows Turing's struggles with his homosexual identity in an era when homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom.

An unexpected commercial smash hit, The Imitation Game grossed over $230 million against a small budget of only $14 million. The Imitation Game was also hailed as one of the best films of 2014, racking up eight Academy Award nominations, and winning for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay. Richard Corliss of Time magazine gave The Imitation Game a glowing review and compared it favorably to other biopics, stating "On its bright face, The Imitation Game , written by Graham Moore and directed by Morten Tyldum, fits into that cozy genre of tortured-genius biopics that sprout like kudzu just in time for the Oscars. But that’s not fair to the film, which outthinks and outplays other examples of the genre." However, like many biopics, The Imitation Game received its fair share of criticism due to its historical inaccuracies.

7 Spike Lee Takes Another Crack at the War Genre with Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Da 5 bloods.

IMDb Rating: 6.5

Controversial auteur Spike Lee first directed a war drama in 2008 with the World War II film Miracle at St. Anna . The movie received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and bombed at the box office, grossing under $10 million against a budget of $45 million. Lee's second attempt at a war film, Da 5 Bloods , had much better results. Da 5 Bloods follows four aging Vietnam War veterans who return to the country in hopes of both finding the remains of their fallen squad leader and recovering the treasure they buried while serving there.

Da 5 Bloods earned Lee some of the best reviews of his career, with critics commending his direction, the screenplay, and the ensemble acting performances by the entire cast. Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote that Da 5 Bloods "runs two hours and thirty-four minutes, but it's not a second too long. On the contrary, it feels compressed, bustling, and frenzied with its intellectual and dramatic energy." In total, Da 5 Bloods received 241 award nominations, with 41 wins. Da 5 Bloods was particularly loved by the National Board of Review, where it won Best Film, Best Director, and Best Ensemble.

6 All Quiet on the Western Front is a German Remake of a Hollywood Classic (2022)

All quiet on the western front, the best movies to watch on hbo max right now.

IMDb Rating: 7.8

Erich Maria Remarque's landmark 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front is widely considered one of the greatest war novels ever written. Lewis Milestone's 1930 cinematic adaptation is a definitive work of Hollywood cinema and a movie that was among the first 50 films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2022, Edward Berger directed a German-language remake of All Quiet on the Western Front , a drama about a young German soldier's horrifying experiences fighting on the Western Front during World War I.

All Quiet on the Western Front was a historic critical success, winning four Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score), Best Achievement in Cinematography, and Best Achievement in Production Design. Winning four Oscars tied All Quiet on the Western Front with Fanny and Alexander , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , and Parasite as the most-awarded foreign language film in Academy Awards history. All Quiet on the Western Front won a total of 56 awards out of 140 nominations. Wendy Ide of The Observer (UK) praised the film, writing, "While not as showy as Sam Mendes’s sweeping, single-shot takes in 1917 , this is remarkable, if harrowing, film-making. Moments of striking beauty – sunlight carved into exultant rays by skeletal winter trees – are almost as shocking and disquieting as the scenes of suffering."

5 Hacksaw Ridge Was Mel Gibson's Comeback Directorial Effort (2016)

Hacksaw ridge.

IMDb Rating: 8.1

Multiple controversies throughout the 2000s and 2010s brought Mel Gibson's once legendary career to a screeching halt. Following a blacklisting that lasted several years, Gibson returned to critical adulation because of directing Hacksaw Ridge , a World War II biographical drama about Desmond Doss, a pacifist combat medic who became the first conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor. During the Battle of Okinawa, Doss saved the lives of 75 men without carrying or firing a weapon.

Hacksaw Ridge was a financial success, grossing over $180 million worldwide on a budget of only $40 million. Considered one of 2016's best movies, Hacksaw Ridge amassed 171 award nominations, with 56 total wins. At the 89th Academy Awards, Hacksaw Ridge received six nominations, winning the Oscars for Best Achievement in Film Editing and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing. Famed critic Rex Reed of the Observer was one of the movie's biggest supporters, writing that Hacksaw Ridge is "The best war film since Saving Private Ryan . It is violent, harrowing, heartbreaking, and unforgettable. And yes, it was directed by Mel Gibson. He deserves a medal, too."

4 Beasts of No Nation Was the First Film Released Directly on Netflix (2015)

Beasts of no nation.

A drama based on the experiences of Agu, a child soldier fighting in the civil war of an unnamed African country.

IMDb Rating: 7.7

An adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala's 2005 award-winning novel of the same name, Beasts of No Nation is a war drama about the experiences of Agu, a child soldier fighting in a civil war in an unnamed African country. Released in 2015, Beasts of No Nation became the first film to directly premiere on Netflix. Offended by the online distribution, America's four largest theater chains, AMC Cinemas, Carmike Cinemas, Cinemark, and Regal Entertainment Group, boycotted Beasts of No Nation , relegating the film to a limited theatrical release only.

During awards season, the controversy surrounding Beasts of No Nation continued as many organizations felt films distributed by streaming services should not qualify for major awards. Nevertheless, Beasts of No Nation still managed to earn 90 award nominations, with 31 victories, including wins for the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress and the CICT-UNESCO Enrico Fulchignoni Award at the Venice Film Festival. Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt addressed the release controversy in her positive review, writing, "Cary Fukunaga’s stark, beautifully shot drama was likely never meant to be a blockbuster; its brutal account of a child soldier in an unnamed African country is far too discomfiting for wider audiences. It does belong on a big screen, though, and more importantly, it just deserves to be seen."

3 The Guns of Navarone Is a Classic Action Adventure War Film (1961)

IMDb Rating: 7.5

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hollywood produced a cycle of highly successful World War II epics that included The Bridge on the River Kwai , The Guns of Navarone , The Longest Day , and The Great Escape . Starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn, The Guns of Navarone tells the story of a team of Allied saboteurs who must infiltrate an impenetrable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy two powerful long-range field guns.

The Guns of Navarone was a massive commercial success, finishing 1961 as the second highest-grossing film worldwide, behind only West Side Story . A critical triumph as well, The Guns of Navarone earned seven Academy Award nominations, winning for Best Effects, Special Effects. The film also received three Golden Globe Award nominations, winning for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Original Score. In 2001, the American Film Institute placed The Guns of Navarone 89th on their list of 100 Years...100 Thrills.

2 The Killing Fields Is a Rare Cinematic Examination of the Cambodian Civil War and Its Aftermath (1984)

10 best international world war ii movies.

Directed by Roland Joffé, The Killing Fields is a rare cinematic examination of the Cambodian Civil War, which took place between 1967 and 1975, and its aftermath. Sam Waterston and Haing S. Ngor star as real-life journalists Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran, who cover dictator Pol Pot's Year Zero campaign, a cultural cleansing that, as a part of the Cambodian genocide, led to the death of approximately two million people.

Celebrated as one of 1984's best films, The Killing Fields drew particular praise for the unforgettable performance given by Ngor, a non-professional actor who survived three different stints in Cambodian prison camps. At the 57th Academy Awards, Ngor became only the second non-professional actor in history to win an Oscar. In addition to Ngor's win for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, The Killing Fields also won Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Killing Fields the 100th best British film of the twentieth century. Seven years later, the American Film Institute named The Killing Fields the 60th most inspiring movie of all time.

1 Born on the Fourth of July Is the Best War Film on Netflix (1989)

IMDb Rating: 7.2

Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July is the best war film currently available to watch on Netflix. The second movie in Stone's Vietnam trilogy, Born on the Fourth of July is a biographical drama about Ron Kovic, a Marine who becomes paralyzed after participating in the Vietnam War. The film focuses on Kovic's struggles with life after the war and his eventual transition into a prominent anti-war activist.

A tremendous box office success, Born of the Fourth of July was the tenth highest-grossing film of 1989. At the Academy Awards, Stone earned his second Oscar for Best Director. Stone won his first Oscar for the first film of his Vietnam Trilogy, Platoon . Born on the Fourth of July also won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called Born on the Fourth of July "the most ambitious nondocumentary film yet made about the entire Vietnam experience." Canby also applauded Tom Cruise's lead performance , writing "It is a film of enormous visceral power with, in the central role, a performance by Tom Cruise that defines everything that is best about the movie."

Leaving Netflix June 2024: Last chance to stream these titles!

Jason Bouwmeester | May 24, 2024 May 26, 2024 Entertainment , Movies , TV

It’s that time of the month for our Leaving Netflix June 2024 list! Various movies, including a few TV shows, are leaving Netflix in June 2024 — fortunately, you have at least a few weeks (and an extra day considering it’s a leap year!) before they do as Netflix was kind enough to send over the list earlier than usual! Our Leaving Netflix June 2024 list below indicates what days each show or movie will be leaving and if it is leaving the Netflix U.S. or Netflix Canada streaming service.

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

The Leaving Netflix June 2024 list is a bit longer than in previous months with a few shows and movies leaving the streaming service. In the U.S., it’s your last chance to watch the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies as well as 11 seasons of NCIS . For those of you watching Netflix Canada, it is your last chance to watch a couple Spider-Man movies and a few others.

And now for our Leaving Netflix June 2024 list…

NOTE: 🇺🇸 or 🇨🇦 denote which service the title is leaving Netflix in June 2024.

Bullet Train 🇺🇸
He’s Just Not That Into You 🇨🇦
Ready Player One 🇺🇸
Top Gear : Seasons 27-28 🇺🇸
Spider-Man: Far From Home 🇨🇦
The Mule 🇺🇸
Top Gun: Maverick 🇨🇦
Pretty Woman 🇨🇦
The Invitation 🇺🇸
Dirty Grandpa 🇺🇸
The Imitation Game 🇺🇸
Meg 2: The Trench 🇺🇸
NCIS : Seasons 1-11 🇺🇸
A Nightmare on Elm Street 🇺🇸
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge 🇺🇸
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors 🇺🇸
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master 🇺🇸
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child 🇺🇸
A Single Man 🇺🇸
Colombiana 🇺🇸
Firestarter 🇺🇸
Footloose 🇺🇸
Godzilla 🇺🇸
The Holiday 🇺🇸
Horrible Bosses 🇨🇦
Hotel Transylvania 🇺🇸
Hotel Transylvania 2 🇺🇸
Inside Man 🇺🇸
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 🇺🇸
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 🇺🇸
Legends of the Fall 🇨🇦
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa 🇺🇸
Marie Antoinette 🇨🇦
National Lampoon’s Animal House 🇺🇸
Out of Africa 🇺🇸
Shrek Forever After 🇺🇸
Spider-Man: Homecoming 🇨🇦
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby 🇺🇸

What do you think about the titles on our Leaving Netflix June 2024 list? There are a few more than usual so what will you be watching before it disappears? Let us know on social media by using the buttons below.

Leaving Netflix June 2024: A Nightmare on Elm Street

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The Best TV Shows And Movies Leaving Netflix In June 2024

Holy cow, May is almost over! That means June is almost here, bringing with it summer. While there are plenty of summer activities one can do outdoors, let's not forget the ultimate summer vibe: sitting inside watching TV. Hey, it gets hot out there! You could go outside and sweat a lot, or you could sit on your couch with the air conditioner blasting, watching Netflix. As is their custom, Netflix will be kicking several titles to the curb as the month rolls over, which means you better act fast to watch some of these films and TV shows. Below, we're highlighting some of best titles leaving Netflix in June 2024.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Wes Craven solidified himself as a master of horror with " A Nightmare on Elm Street ," a slasher with an ingenious hook: the killer targets teens in their dreams. Craven and company could've never predicted their little horror movie would unleash an entire franchise and turn dream-killer Fred "Freddy" Krueger into an icon. But that's exactly what happened. Hell, Freddy got so big that he even had his own hotline to call at one point . The many sequels would dilute Craven's formula and turn Freddy into a big of a comic figure, but the first film remains a classic for a reason: it's effective as hell. Netflix is currently streaming most of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films, but the majority of them are leaving the service (see below), so maybe throw yourself a little Freddy marathon while you can.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2

Quentin Tarantino considers "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Kill Bill Vol. 2" to be one movie . Whether or not you agree with that is entirely up to you. But whatever you think, just know that both volumes are leaving Netflix soon. A bloody, stylish tale of revenge, the "Kill Bill" films have Tarantino throwing every trick he knows up on the screen, mashing up styles and stories to follow the Bride (Uma Thurman) as she sets out to kill those who wronged her. I think Tarantino went on to better things after the "Kill Bill" saga, but these movies (or movie ) really hold up. Funny, violent, action-packed, and brimming with imagination. Hurry up and watch before the end of June!

Spike Lee, one of our best living filmmakers, turned his lens to the crime thriller with 2006's wildly entertaining "Inside Man." What could've been a standard bank robbery pic is transformed into something more unique thanks to Lee's keen eye for New York and all its character dramas. When Clive Owen and his gang seize a bank and take hostages, Lee regular Denzel Washington, playing a NYPD Detective, shows up to try to rectify the situation. But nothing is as it seems here, and this is not your standard bank robbery. While Lee has made greater, more important films, "Inside Man" is actually the biggest box office hit of his career, and it's easy to see why: it's a lot of fun.

The MonsterVerse has gotten kind of silly with recent entries like " Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ," which makes the 2014 "Godzilla" from Gareth Edwards kind of weird to watch. There's no sense of "fun" to be had in Edwards' entry, which is dark, scary and very serious. When gigantic monsters suddenly start attacking the planet, the titan Godzilla rises from the sea and sets out on a rampage. Lots and lots of property is destroyed. The human characters are all kind of dull and lifeless, but Edwards has a great sense of scale and is able to make Godzilla feel like a mighty, imposing force of nature run amok.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Before Adam McKay started making Oscar-bait movies he made truly silly stuff like "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." This ridiculous comedy features the "Step Brothers" duo Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as a pair of best buddy NASCAR drivers. That basic setup allows McKay and company to throw a whole bunch of goofy humor at the screen, and give Amy Adams one of her best roles, too (Amy Adams, do comedies again, we need it!). While "Anchorman" is probably the most beloved of the Ferrell/McKay movies, "Talladega Nights" is so unapologetically wacky that it's hard to resist.

TV shows and movies leaving Netflix in June 2024

Leaving 6/2/24

Bullet Train

Ready Player One

Leaving 6/9/24

Top Gear: Seasons 27-28

Leaving 6/16/24

Leaving 6/23/24

The Invitation

Leaving 6/25/24

Dirty Grandpa

The Imitation Game

Leaving 6/28/24

Meg 2: The Trench

Leaving 6/29/24

NCIS: Seasons 1-11

Leaving 6/30/24

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

A Single Man

Firestarter

The Holiday

Hotel Transylvania

Hotel Transylvania 2

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Kill Bill: Vol. 2

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

National Lampoon's Animal House

Out of Africa

Shrek Forever After

The Apprentice Review: A Subtly Humiliating Look At The Rise Of Trump [CANNES 2024]

Strong performances from Jeremy Strong, Sebastian Stan, and Maria Bakalova
Resists the temptation of humanizing Trump or turning him into a supervillain
A few too many winks at Trump's future political career for cheap knowing laughs

To say that it's tricky to release a Donald Trump biopic in an election year while the beleaguered demagogue faces a glut of criminal and civil charges is perhaps a bit of an understatement. Chess is tricky. Peace in the Middle East is tricky. This is a horse of a different color. Some might argue that any film revolving around Trump is going to be problematic, because it runs the risk of glorifying or forcing audiences to empathize with them. How do you even make a Donald Trump movie without descending into "Saturday Night Live" territory, complete with an over-the-top vocal impersonation? Well, if you have to make one, this is probably pretty close to the best approach. Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, and Maria Bakalova each put in interesting, dynamic performances, and director Ali Abbasi goes to great lengths to build a nuanced yet abjectly humiliating portrait of the controversial figure.

When Donald Trump (Stan) first meets the hotshot lawyer Roy Cohn (Strong), he is little more than the second son of a mediocre real estate mogul, obsessed with the idea of success as an object unto itself. Cohn, a ruthless political player with half of New York City in his pocket, senses a similar sociopathy in Trump and takes him under his wing. First he helps him with a pesky housing discrimination lawsuit, then he manages to convince the City of New York to give Trump's hotel construction project a tax abatement. But oh, the monsters we make. It isn't long before Trump's ambition has outstripped even Cohn's considerable appetite for power, to the detriment of ... well, pretty much the entire world.

The depiction of Trump

When you watch the first few minutes of "The Apprentice," there's almost a sense of repulsion as Sebastian Stan speaks as Trump. "Am I actually watching this?" you may ask yourself. "Have they really cast one of the most handsome stars working today to do an impression of Trump?" But director Ali Abbasi's intentions for the character become clear almost immediately, and Stan effortlessly slides into the role. The depiction of Trump plays into a sense of internal delusion — especially once he's more successful, Stan portrays him with the supreme confidence of an idiot who thinks he's the coolest, smartest, handsomest guy in any room.

There are moments where Abbasi sets up these hero shots where Trump clearly thinks he looks like a movie star, but they're purposefully just the slightest bit off, and he actually looks tremendously stupid. Trump is often begrudgingly praised for his charisma, but "The Apprentice" captures how awkward his interactions with other people actually are, as though he fundamentally does not know how to be a human. Stan doesn't fall into the trap of imitating Trump too much: the patter and cadence of his vocal patterns are there, but he doesn't get caught up in doing the voice, which is 100% the right choice.

It's perhaps a cruel irony on Abbasi's part that even in a movie about Trump, Trump isn't the alpha of the production. That honor goes to "Succession" star Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, who owns every inch of the screen, blisteringly confident at the top of his game and hollow-eyed and vulnerable after he falls from grace. The truth of the matter is that Strong's performance is so powerful that whenever Cohn is on-screen, Trump is just a footnote, and that's probably one of the things about the film that will make him angriest . Do you know how bad of a person you have to be when Cohn, the actual devil, comes across as more sympathetic than you? Even the title of the film, "The Apprentice," is a subtle jab. It seems at first as though it's named for the TV show that turned Donald Trump from a real estate guy to a celebrity, but it's actually a reminder that even the Trumpian qualities he values most in himself are a mere imitation of another man who, let's be honest, did it better.

A tale of withering contempt for its subject

Between Jeremy Strong's Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova's Ivana Trump, there's no end to the withering contempt for our ersatz hero. The Oscar-nominated "Borat 2" star doesn't get as much screen time as we would like, but she heartbreakingly depicts the less-than-romantic trajectory of their relationship as she comes to realize that she's trapped in a marriage with an emotionally stunted man incapable of genuine affection for anyone. It's a cage of her own design, but Bakalova brings such heart to the role that we can't help but feel for Ivana.

The only real misstep of "The Apprentice" as far as we can tell is that sometimes it tries to get a bit too clever. Do we really need scenes where we get Donald Trump's initial reaction to the "Make America Great Again" slogan back when Ronald Reagan tried to use it in the 1980s? Probably not. Nor does it add a lot to the film to watch an interview where he jokes about eventually running for president. When Ali Abbasi gets too sly about these kinds of moments, it takes the audience out of the film for a split second, bringing them unpleasantly back to the current reality of Trump's political career.

Aside from these minor issues, it's almost shocking how well Abbasi plays "The Apprentice." It would have been a mistake to expend too much effort in trying to humanize Trump, or to make him into a supervillain, which we can only imagine he would have loved. Instead, it's subtly undermining, making him look blustering and even weak — a grotesque monster, to be sure, but one that's not nearly as impressive as he imagines himself to be. Sebastian Stan puts in a well-judged performance as Trump, off-putting in a way that only Hollywood stars freed from the prison of leading man status can manage. But it's the incomparable Strong who steals the show as Cohn, the Pygmalion who carves Trump out of spray tan and ill-fitting suits to make him into the monster he becomes.

"The Apprentice" premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Wide release plans have yet to be announced.

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Brooke shields elected actors’ equity president, scarlett johansson had to threaten openai with legal action to get soundalike voice taken down, wants “appropriate legislation” to stop such deepfakes – update.

By Dade Hayes , Dominic Patten

UPDATED, 4:15 PM: Something called “Sky” that sounds a lot like Scarlett Johansson ‘s voice no longer is on OpenAI , but the Her star says there’s a lot more behind the story.

For one thing, she maintains that OpenAI founder Sam Altman was advised of the actor’s objections to the voice feature but still pushed forward with the update.

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Here is Johansson’s full statement:

Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people. After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named “Sky” sounded like me . When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word “her” – a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human. Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there. As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the “Sky” voice. Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the “Sky” voice. In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.

Sources with knowledge of the situation separately confirmed to Deadline the Black Widow actor’s account of events.

PREVIOUSLY, 7:57 AM PT: OpenAI is pulling an artificial intelligence voice that users compared with Scarlett Johansson’s, but the company insists it is “not an imitation” and that it “supports the creative community.”

The company detailed its rationale in a blog post Monday morning, saying the voice for “Sky,” one of five interactive voices introduced last fall, “sampled” that of a real voice actor. The company has not disclosed the identities of the actors whose voices served as the foundation for the ChatGPT features, citing privacy considerations.

AI voices, OpenAI asserted, “should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice.”

Saturday Night Live worked in a riff on the controversy during “Weekend Update,” with Johansson’s husband, Colin Jost, joking about comparisons between the voice-activated ChatGPT and the film Her . In the 2013 film, Johansson voiced the central, if technically inanimate, character of a virtual assistant with which Joaquin Phoenix’s character becomes enamored.

“I’ve never bothered to watch because without that body, what’s the point of listening?” Jost cracked.

The flap is anything but a laughing matter to Hollywood’s labor unions, of course. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA made AI key elements of their landmark 2023 strikes and the guilds continue to closely monitor and weigh in on developments on the technology frontier.

Founded in 2015 as a non-profit, OpenAI has created for-profit subsidiaries designed as vehicles for Microsoft’s investment in the firm. Microsoft has reportedly committed a total of $13 billion to OpenAI, including $10 billion in funding last year.

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OpenAI Suspends ChatGPT Voice That Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson in ‘Her’: AI ‘Should Not Deliberately Mimic a Celebrity’s Distinctive Voice’

By Todd Spangler

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Her - Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson

After many people noticed that one of the voices in OpenAI ’s voice-enabled chatbot sounded very much like that of Scarlett Johansson ‘s disembodied AI companion in Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie “Her,” the company is suspending the voice for the time being.

The Johansson-soundalike voice, called Sky, was part of OpenAI’s GPT-4o release, which it launched last week. The updated AI chatbot can respond to verbal questions from users to mimic a real-time conversation. The connection to “Her” was explicitly drawn by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who after the event shared on X a one-word post: “her.”

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“We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT , especially Sky,” OpenAI said. “We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them.”

SEE ALSO: Scarlett Johansson Says She Was ‘Shocked’ and ‘Angered’ Over OpenAI’s Use of a Voice That Was ‘Eerily Similar to Mine’

The Johansson-like ChatGPT voice was fodder for a joke at the expense of her husband, Colin Jost, on this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live.” The gag was written by Jost’s “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che for their annual joke-swapping segment, in which the goal is to prank each other with cringeworthy one-liners. “ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s AI character in ‘Her,’ which I’ve never bothered to watch because without that body, what’s the point of listening?” Jost read off a cue card before dissolving into embarrassed laughter. ( Watch the bit here. )

Altman said in an interview last year that “Her” is his favorite movie. In the movie, Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who, heartbroken after his marriage ends, falls in love with a new AI “operating system” called Samantha (voiced by Johansson).

It’s unclear whether OpenAI has been in contact with Johansson or her reps about the similar-sounding Sky voice. [ UPDATE: Johansson released a statement sayingAltman had reached out to ask her to lend her voice to ChatGPT but she declined; when she heard the demo, “I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine.” ] In its statement Monday, OpenAI said, “We support the creative community and worked closely with the voice acting industry to ensure we took the right steps to cast ChatGPT’s voices. Each actor receives compensation above top-of-market rates, and this will continue for as long as their voices are used in our products.”

OpenAI first introduced voice capabilities in ChatGPT in September 2023. The company said it “partnered with award-winning casting directors and producers to create the criteria for voices” and received more than 400 submissions from voice and screen actors. It settled on actors for five voices (Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky), and each actor flew to San Francisco for recording sessions.

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COMMENTS

The Imitation Game movie review (2014)
How odd that "The Imitation Game," one of the more rousingly entertaining crowd-pleasers coming out this holiday season—as endorsed by its People's Choice Award at the Toronto film festival—also happens to be one of the most devastatingly sad.. On one hand, this is a tense World War II thriller about a stellar team of Brits who cracked Nazi Germany's Enigma code.
The Imitation Game
Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/09/24 Full Review Tony S Titled after a scholarly paper written by the main character, The Imitation Game is a World War II story about the ...
The Imitation Game
The Imitation Game Reviews. The movie goes beyond requiem thanks to Cumberbatch's performance, the supporting actors and the surprising intensity of a spy thriller set mainly in two rooms and a ...
The Imitation Game Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 26 ): Kids say ( 51 ): Without question, Cumberbatch is up to the task of bringing to life a complicated, brilliant man. Turing is multi-dimensional, his emotional depths layered. He is, by far, the best part of this enjoyable, if flawed, film.
'The Imitation Game' Stars Benedict Cumberbatch
PG-13. 1h 54m. By A.O. Scott. Nov. 27, 2014. "The Imitation Game" is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Alan Turing's tragically ...
The Imitation Game (2014)
The Imitation Game: Directed by Morten Tyldum. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear. During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians while attempting to come to terms with his troubled private life.
The Imitation Game Review
The Imitation Game has a built-in ticking clock, shaping Turing's true life story into a Hollywood thriller. Secret agents, webs of conspiracy, high-tech devices cranking towards life or death ...
The Imitation Game
The Imitation Game is a 2014 American period biographical thriller film directed by Morten Tyldum and written by ... the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 287 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7 ... New York Observer ' s Rex Reed declared that "one of the most important stories of the last century is one of the greatest movies of ...
'The Imitation Game' Movie Review
It's an undeniable pleasure to dig into a crackling spy thriller dished out by experts. The Imitation Game is an immersive true story that laces dizzying tension with raw emotion. Benedict ...
'The Imitation Game' Review
The Imitation Game is a fantastic piece of historical theater that never fully embraces its cinematic identity. The Imitation Game exposes a little-known part of WWII: mathematician Alan Turing's (Benedict Cumberbatch) top-secret quest to crack the Nazi coded message system known as "Enigma".Working at Bletchley Park alongside other accomplished code breakers like Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode ...
Review: 'Imitation Game' a smart tale about Enigma-buster Alan Turing
By Kenneth Turan. Nov. 26, 2014 3:15 PM PT. Los Angeles Times Film Critic. The disturbing, involving, always-complex story of British mathematician Alan Turing is a tale crafted to resonate for ...
News, sport and opinion from the Guardian's US edition
Benedict Cumberbatch shines as Alan Turing, the genius codebreaker who faced persecution for his sexuality, in this gripping and moving thriller by Mark Kermode.
The Imitation Game review: turning Alan Turing's life into a code
Turing's life during World War II is the subject of The Imitation Game, a new movie from director Morten Tyldum. Tyldum is a relatively unknown director from Norway, and this is his first film ...
'The Imitation Game' movie review: Benedict Cumberbatch passes the test
"The Imitation Game" chronicles Turing's wartime efforts, its tale of brainy derring-do bookended by a postwar police investigation that revealed his homosexuality and resulted in his ...
The Imitation Game (2014)
9/10. An instant classic. HoverDonkey 8 October 2014. A movie which oozes Britishness from every frame, The Imitation Game is an instant classic. Wartime Britain is depicted vividly, if a little caricatured, with an autumnal palette and a jaunty air.
The Imitation Game
The Imitation Game is a well-made, well-acted, thought-provoking film. Certainly its subject matter makes it a difficult one, and its snide dismissals of God don't help. ... Movie Review. Secrets haunt us like spirits half seen. They're everywhere, it seems—behind closet doors and in secret drawers, redacted from memos and left out of ...
The Imitation Game
Generally Favorable Based on 49 Critic Reviews. 71. 78% Positive 38 Reviews. 20% Mixed 10 Reviews. 2% Negative 1 Review. All Reviews; ... The Imitation Game is one ok work and film about person I didnt know much about but it showed he how imporatant he actually was in stopping World War 2. ... I want to say that 'The Imitation Game' is a movie ...
Movie Review: The Imitation Game (2014)
Although Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his services in 1945 and was officially pardoned by Queen Elizabeth in 2013, The Imitation Game convincingly makes clear that an unjust law not only destroyed one of the best minds of the century, but damaged all of us. Critical Movie Critic Rating: 5.
Deep Focus: The Imitation Game
The Imitation Game is a tremendously engaging work of historical fiction about Alan Turing, the British mathematical genius who was key to cracking the military codes of the Nazis' "unbreakable" Enigma machine.Unlike self-consciously unconventional biopics, The Imitation Game melds fact and invention with lucidity and sweep.The movie time-jumps among three periods in Turing's life: his ...
The Imitation Game Review
Compare The Imitation Game with 2001's Enigma, another Bletchley-based thriller (a fictionalisation of the cypher-cracking efforts by Turing's team), and it's like racing a thoroughbred ...
REVIEW: The Imitation Game
Janis Hopkins · December 1, 2014. In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch plays prototypical aspergian genius Alan Turing. Cumberbatch seems to be conjuring a career out of the becheekboned ...
The Imitation Game
Dove Review. "The Imitation Game" features strong performances from the two leads: Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, a genius mathematician, and Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, another genius who finishes a difficult crossword puzzle in less than six minutes and wins a place on Turing's code team. It took Turing eight minutes to do the ...
THE IMITATION GAME
THE IMITATION GAME is a fascinating, but stilted, historical drama about the life of Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who helped end World War II, but was eventually charged with gross indecency because of his homosexuality, leading to his eventual suicide. The movie primarily focuses on Turing working for the British government to crack ...
Best movies on TV this weekend, from Dog to The Imitation Game
Read our review of The Imitation Game. The Imitation Game airs on BBC One at 10.40pm on Friday ... The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2pm, ITV2) Napoleon Dynamite (3.10pm, Film4) Starman (5pm, Film4)
The Best War Movies on Netflix, Ranked
IMDb Rating: 8.0 Based on the 1983 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, The Imitation Game is a World War II biographical thriller about Alan Turing, a cryptanalyst who helped the British crack German codes during the Second World War. Turing's work in theoretical computer science laid the foundation for the eventual creation of the general-purpose computer.
Leaving Netflix June 2024: Last chance to stream these titles!
The Leaving Netflix June 2024 list is a bit longer than in previous months with a few shows and movies leaving the streaming service. In the U.S., it's your last chance to watch the A Nightmare ...
The Best TV Shows And Movies Leaving Netflix In June 2024
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. National Lampoon's Animal House. Out of Africa. Shrek Forever After. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. May gives way to June, which means it's time to say ...
The Apprentice Review: A Subtly Humiliating Look at the Rise ...
Even the title of the film, "The Apprentice," is a subtle jab. It seems at first as though it's named for the TV show that turned Donald Trump from a real estate guy to a celebrity, but it's ...
Scarlett Johansson-Sounding ChatGPT Voice To Be Pulled
PREVIOUSLY, 7:57 AM PT: OpenAI is pulling an artificial intelligence voice that users compared with Scarlett Johansson's, but the company insists it is "not an imitation" and that it ...
OpenAI Pulls ChatGPT Voice That Sounds Like Scarlett ...
The Johansson-soundalike voice, called Sky, was part of OpenAI's GPT-4o release, which it launched last week. The updated AI chatbot can respond to verbal questions from users to mimic a real ...

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Review: ‘Imitation Game’ a crackerjack tale about Enigma buster Alan Turing

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