View Full Version : Review: The Imitation Game
I watched The Imitation Game last night. No one at the time other than a small number of people (due to being classified) and few today realize just how important breaking the Germans "unbreakable" enigma code was to the war. Had they not broken that code, at the very least, the war would have lasted years longer and killed millions more to the loss of that war itself as a possibility.
One of the greatest minds of his time, mathematician Alan Turing cracked the enigma code. Turing's ideas still impact a number of important areas today and he was way ahead of his time and a truly remarkable person. The movie does a nice job of balancing the technical importance of the essential matter of breaking the code with the personal life of Turing, who's life was essentially destroyed because he was gay, which was literally illegal in England at that time. The movie also illustrates the extreme suppression of women at the time and seems to fancy itself not just a spy thriller genre but social justice champion, the latter of which gets overly heavy handed toward the end. I think simply showing us what it was like for them at the time, vs beating the viewer over the head at the end with text that seemed very out of place to the central theme of the movie, would have been more effective.
The acting by Benedict Cumberbatch (who's proving to be a very dynamic actor) and cast is top tier and is what makes the movie above your average movie of the ilk.
PS: The Germans on the front lines did realize the code had been broken and tried to convince their bosses it had been broken but good old German arrogance, refused to believe their "unbreakable" had indeed been broken. It's a good thing the German high command was so damn arrogant. It cost them dearly. The movie makes no mention of this and I think at least a few scenes from the German side could have really done justice to this otherwise very good movie.
I give it an A-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn-7SNrQWMo
sevenhelmet
04-21-15, 11:01
Nice summation, Will- I agree completely. Except for the last few minutes, I thought it was well-produced with good cast and acting.
WickedWillis
04-21-15, 11:45
I thought it was incredibly boring and I really did not enjoy it. Cumberbatch plays the same role in every film he's in, he has no depth to his acting and he gets hard to watch for more than ten minutes. Knightly is equally as terrible IMO. For a film about such a vital and important part of history, I feel the story really deserved a better film.
I thought it was incredibly boring and I really did not enjoy it. Cumberbatch plays the same role in every film he's in, he has no depth to his acting and he gets hard to watch for more than ten minutes. Knightly is equally as terrible IMO. For a film about such a vital and important part of history, I feel the story really deserved a better film.
I guess that's what makes horse racing. :cool:
I saw it last week and I enjoyed it as well. Turing was certainly a brilliant individual and I imagine it could be a very lonely existence when functioning on such a intellectual level.
I saw it last week and I enjoyed it as well. Turing was certainly a brilliant individual and I imagine it could be a very lonely existence when functioning on such a intellectual level.
Yes, I find it very difficult
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHYiyv68q2o
Moose-Knuckle
05-31-15, 04:48
Watched it last week and I'll be honest, I'm pretty well versed on WWII clandestine services and I had never heard of Alan Turing before the film. Talk about a man ahead of his time! The father of computers no less.
I look at it as a historical drama, pretty on point and well executed. Any WWII buff should watch this film.
The only word I can use to describe Dr. Turing's fate is barbaric. As humans we really are our own worst enemy.
I liked the movie, but didn't put it in the great category.
Eurodriver
05-31-15, 07:43
I watched it over the weekend, actually. I enjoyed it. Could've done without the awkward pre-teen homo scenes at Sherborne school however.
One of the greatest minds of his time, mathematician Alan Turing cracked the enigma code.
Enigma was initially cracked by a team of Poles led by Marian Rejewski in the 1930s. When Poland was overrun, they shared with Brits, who later shared with US.
While the Poles had found weaknesses in the system, there was still a lot of manual work to decrypt a single message, and allies were overwhelmed trying this. They were basically using handheld techniques like most folks use to crack the puzzles in newspapers.
Turing's contribution was to automate this process with a general purpose machine that could recover the rotor settings and allow an easy decryption of any of the day's messages.
tl;dr:
Poles cracked Enigma, Turing automated the process.
Nice summation, Will- I agree completely. Except for the last few minutes, I thought it was well-produced with good cast and acting.
I agree it was interesting movie except for the end.
Enigma was initially cracked by a team of Poles led by Marian Rejewski in the 1930s. When Poland was overrun, they shared with Brits, who later shared with US.
While the Poles had found weaknesses in the system, there was still a lot of manual work to decrypt a single message, and allies were overwhelmed trying this. They were basically using handheld techniques like most folks use to crack the puzzles in newspapers.
Turing's contribution was to automate this process with a general purpose machine that could recover the rotor settings and allow an easy decryption of any of the day's messages.
tl;dr:
Poles cracked Enigma, Turing automated the process.
The Poles cracked an earlier Enigma, but once more rotors and settings were added their methods became entirely impractical. The British did use their initial work as a basis for their own though.
Moose-Knuckle
05-31-15, 23:02
I watched it over the weekend, actually. I enjoyed it. Could've done without the awkward pre-teen homo scenes at Sherborne school however.
I'm sorry but you lost me.
There were no homo scenes at the school. Only scene that even suggested they might be was when he decrypted his friend's note that said; "I love you". No swapping spit or any of that.
Moose-Knuckle
05-31-15, 23:05
Enigma was initially cracked by a team of Poles led by Marian Rejewski in the 1930s. When Poland was overrun, they shared with Brits, who later shared with US.
While the Poles had found weaknesses in the system, there was still a lot of manual work to decrypt a single message, and allies were overwhelmed trying this. They were basically using handheld techniques like most folks use to crack the puzzles in newspapers.
Turing's contribution was to automate this process with a general purpose machine that could recover the rotor settings and allow an easy decryption of any of the day's messages.
tl;dr:
Poles cracked Enigma, Turing automated the process.
The Poles cracked an earlier Enigma, but once more rotors and settings were added their methods became entirely impractical. The British did use their initial work as a basis for their own though.
In the film MI6 did divulge they got their Enigma machine from the Polish Resistance. However that was all that was mentioned about them. Good to know they were on to breaking it prior to Turing's team.
The Dumb Gun Collector
05-31-15, 23:08
Very enjoyable flick. I didn't mind the (sort of made up, sort of true) end because I knew that was the price of getting a movie made about such an esoteric subject.
I just saw an Enigma machine at the Imperial War Museum. Awesomeness.
I imagine it could be a very lonely existence when functioning on such a intellectual level.
Nah, it's fine.:cool:
I thought it was an excellent movie, I guess they had to emphasize the gay aspect to get the movie made. It bothered me that they had to do that, I don't like politics in my movies. Not that it wasn't legitimately part of his story, but that they almost made his sexuality more important than the brilliance of his invention and the thousands of lives they saved. Anyway, I thought it was a great movie overall. Maybe not historically accurate, but a good movie is seldom based on absolute truth.
Moose-Knuckle
05-31-15, 23:31
I thought it was an excellent movie, I guess they had to emphasize the gay aspect to get the movie made. It bothered me that they had to do that, I don't like politics in my movies. Not that it wasn't legitimately part of his story, but that they almost made his sexuality more important than the brilliance of his invention and the thousands of lives they saved. Anyway, I thought it was a great movie overall. Maybe not historically accurate, but a good movie is seldom based on absolute truth.
You'd be surprise to find out the opposite was true. It's an independent film that none of the major studios would touch. I thought that was weird myself. I watched a documentary on the film and the life of Turing interviewing the cast, authors of several books on him, and the screen play writer. The writer and one of the films producers are gay so Alan Turing was kind of a childhood hero to them. The writer is a big tech geek so he looks up to guys like Turing like most kids would look up to Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan.
I thought it was an excellent movie, I guess they had to emphasize the gay aspect to get the movie made. It bothered me that they had to do that, I don't like politics in my movies. Not that it wasn't legitimately part of his story, but that they almost made his sexuality more important than the brilliance of his invention and the thousands of lives they saved. Anyway, I thought it was a great movie overall. Maybe not historically accurate, but a good movie is seldom based on absolute truth.
I hear you but to ignore him being gay would be a disservice. Here's a guy who both helped win the war and came up with the basis for modern computers, who was later ostracized and marginalized solely due to his homosexuality. Lost his clearance (and therefore his job), chemically castrated, and received no public recognition until far after his death.
If that's not part of the tragedy of his tale, nothing is.
I hear you but to ignore him being gay would be a disservice. Here's a guy who both helped win the war and came up with the basis for modern computers, who was later ostracized and marginalized solely due to his homosexuality. Lost his clearance (and therefore his job), chemically castrated, and received no public recognition until far after his death.
If that's not part of the tragedy of his tale, nothing is.
Agreed, his sexual orientation was not just peripheral to the story, but a national disgrace, and I thought the director did a god job of balancing the historical aspects of his contributions to the war effort (he saved millions of lives at the very least) and the obvious social/cultural aspects of his life and his end, essential to the story. He was a national, more like an international hero in every sense of the word, and that's what he got for his efforts. Poor SOB.
I hear you but to ignore him being gay would be a disservice. Here's a guy who both helped win the war and came up with the basis for modern computers, who was later ostracized and marginalized solely due to his homosexuality. Lost his clearance (and therefore his job), chemically castrated, and received no public recognition until far after his death.
If that's not part of the tragedy of his tale, nothing is.
I think if you read my post more carefully, you'll see that my point is not that his sexuality and resultant treatment be ignored, rather that it play what I would consider a more appropriate role in the story. I believe they gave it a much larger role in the story because of the current gay rights politics and Hollywood's insistence on jumping on every socio-political bandwagon.
The writers clearly wanted to drum up tension in the story and the best way to do that was to increase the interplay between the danger of his predicament, with the importance of the project hanging in the balance. The tension was created by the chance that at any moment he might be found out by the people who were skeptical of his work, and envious of his brilliance.
This could have been true to history, but I tend to think the extent to which his sexuality played a role in the true story was exaggerated. I contend that is was likely a screen writer's contrivance to keep the story interesting to the viewer. And of course Hollywood likes to 'teach us a lesson' about it's view of tolerance. I don't care for blatant political education in my movies.
Yes, in retrospect it was unfortunate that as a gay man he was mistreated at that time, but that's not the world we live in now.
You'd be surprise to find out the opposite was true. It's an independent film that none of the major studios would touch. I thought that was weird myself. I watched a documentary on the film and the life of Turing interviewing the cast, authors of several books on him, and the screen play writer. The writer and one of the films producers are gay so Alan Turing was kind of a childhood hero to them. The writer is a big tech geek so he looks up to guys like Turing like most kids would look up to Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan.
You actually made my point for me saying, "The writer and one of the films producers are gay so Alan Turing was kind of a childhood hero to them.". Of course the fact that he was gay would be a large part of the story.
There are a lot of reasons why a major studio wouldn't want to do a film like this, and it probably had nothing to do with the gay aspect of the story. It was more likely the big studios didn't see any money in the film, it's NOT likely they were afraid of a gay sub-story. The movie was just too small.
The way the film was distributed it still had to go through "Hollywood" to some extent.
Agreed, his sexual orientation was not just peripheral to the story, but a national disgrace, and I thought the director did a god job of balancing the historical aspects of his contributions to the war effort (he saved millions of lives at the very least) and the obvious social/cultural aspects of his life and his end, essential to the story. He was a national, more like an international hero in every sense of the word, and that's what he got for his efforts. Poor SOB.
The only reason his sexuality was central to the story is because they wrote it that way. In my post above I suggested that they did it to create tension, good guys, and bad guys, so they would have something beside dry history. That is what screen writers do, they create stories that are interesting by creating characters and situations.
I hope you are not saying that the movie is strictly factual. My point is that it could have been written with less emphasis and moralizing on Turing's circumstances. Then I would have come out of the movie feeling less like I was manipulated and taught a lesson.
I think a lot of people want to ensure they display their "Tolerance" badge and will go out of their way not to criticize anything having anything to do with gays no matter how small the criticism. I don't need to wear my "Tolerance" badge as I feel very comfortable with my positions. And I feel that aspect of the movie was somewhat over emphasized.
The only reason his sexuality was central to the story is because they wrote it that way. In my post above I suggested that they did it to create tension, good guys, and bad guys, so they would have something beside dry history. That is what screen writers do, they create stories that are interesting by creating characters and situations.
I hope you are not saying that the movie is strictly factual. My point is that it could have been written with less emphasis and moralizing on Turing's circumstances. Then I would have come out of the movie feeling less like I was manipulated and taught a lesson.
I think a lot of people want to ensure they display their "Tolerance" badge and will go out of their way not to criticize anything having anything to do with gays no matter how small the criticism. I don't need to wear my "Tolerance" badge as I feel very comfortable with my positions. And I feel that aspect of the movie was somewhat over emphasized.
The treatment post war of Turing was quite factual and easy enough to find. I didn't see any factual indescrepencies between that aspect of the movie and the actual history. It was in line with several biographies etc I have read. It was a bit heavy handed, and there was an obvious attempt by the director to make sure the audience well aware of his sexual preferences and the out come of it to his life, but it was generally well done. Your mileage may differ but I don't require nor accept an accusation I'd have any damn problems being critical of it, him, or the story due to the subject matter. The man was fuc$%3ed over, simple as that. He was not the first, nor will he be the last, but I don't mind that fact being exposed in our more open society as possible lessons learned. That would be like doing a movie on Galileo and focusing on his discoveries and ignoring how he died under house arrest for going against the views of the church. Examples of people getting the shaft for their beliefs, sexual orientations, etc are part of the story, and this was a central component to the life and death of an important figure in WWII. I do think the director could have been less heavy handed about it with all the text at the end and such and left it to the viewer to decide the morality of it.
The treatment post war of Turing was quite factual and easy enough to find. I didn't see any factual indescrepencies between that aspect of the movie and the actual history. It was in line with several biographies etc I have read. It was a bit heavy handed, and there was an obvious attempt by the director to make sure the audience well aware of his sexual preferences and the out come of it to his life, but it was generally well done. Your mileage may differ but I don't require nor accept an accusation I'd have any damn problems being critical of it, him, or the story due to the subject matter. The man was fuc$%3ed over, simple as that. He was not the first, nor will he be the last, but I don't mind that fact being exposed in our more open society as possible lessons learned. That would be like doing a movie on Galileo and focusing on his discoveries and ignoring how he died under house arrest for going against the views of the church. Examples of people getting the shaft for their beliefs, sexual orientations, etc are part of the story, and this was a central component to the life and death of an important figure in WWII. I do think the director could have been less heavy handed about it with all the text at the end and such and left it to the viewer to decide the morality of it.
We were only disagreeing about the degree, not the BASIC story of his life. I thought it was a very good movie as I said in my first post.
Thanks for your review.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.