The Imitation Game Movie Review

The Imitation Game (2014)

Rent The Imitation Game on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book (paid link) 
Written by: Graham Moore, Andrew Hodges (book)
Directed by: Morten Tyldum
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
Alan Turing and his team of code-breakers attempts to crack the unbreakable German Enigma code during World War II.

Verdict
An amazing story about an amazing scientist, Alan Turing. He cracked the impossible code and invented computers while sworn to secrecy. Cumberbatch is of course amazing, portraying the social abrasive Turing. Everyone does a great job in bringing this story to life. He has to crack a German code, but solving it turns out to be just the beginning. 
While Turing is portrayed as unlikable, this sets up great moments of triumph with his colleagues.
Watch it.

Review
The movie begins with a voice over by Turing urging us to watch the whole thing and see his side before making any judgements. This is good advice as Turing's disdain for social procedure causes him to come off like a jerk. Cumberbatch and the writing depict Turing as passionate and driven instead of just callous. Though, you can't blame his co-workers' feelings of disdain.

Knightly as Joan Clarke helps to humanize Turing, though I'm not sure anyone in real life would take the time. They find common ground in being outcasts. As a woman, she's relegated to being a secretary instead of a code breaker despite her brilliance, and Turing's passion for his work and dismissive attitude towards others isolates them both. Of course Turing's interest in her is purely academic.
In a small moment at her behest, he gives each of his co-workers an apple and laboriously recounts a joke. It's a small moment, but it shows that he's trying, and they know it too. He just doesn't understand how to interact with people.
When Commander Deniston wants to fire Turing, each of his co-workers threatens to quit. I'm not sure Alan quite earned the moment, at least by what the movie showed us, but then again his coworkers realize that Turing's machine is their best hope at not only cracking the code, but winning the war.

The Imitation Game - Come for the Cumberbatch.

The timeline jumps between 1941 where Turing is cracking the code and 1951 where he's been detained in relation to a home robbery. Often the movie flashes back to the 1930's to memories that shaped Turing as a child. It seems like Turing did tell the cop about his work during the war, which seems like a breach of classified information.

The movie does a great job of making you feel the exact emotion desired for each scene. With the Commander on the verge of shutting down Turing's frivolous machine, they have one more chance to crack the code. It's a success, but Alan is the first to realize that they can't stop an impending attack. They must be tactical with the information they act upon so the German's don't realize the code has been cracked and change the encoding.

Turing's group now has to determine the minimal amount of actions to win the war and the maximum amount that won't alert the Germans the code is broken. I didn't understand why Turing couldn't take this information to Commander Deniston. Surely he understands tactics and the repercussion of being cavalier. This point is hand waved as Deniston doesn't like Turing anyway.
I liked the twist of pivoting from breaking Enigma to flying under the radar. I hadn't heard the story that Britain helped win World War II, granted my history lessons were from United States history books.

The movie states a few times that the fact Turing wasn't normal is the reason he accomplished extraordinary feats. Turing's homosexuality provides a parallel to his intellect with the story line from 1950. Homosexuality was considered illegal and his report of the home robbery led to him being charged and chemically castrated. The movie depicts that as leading to his suicide.

If the military had made Turing fit normal, he wouldn't have cracked the code, and he wouldn't have invented the computer. If society hadn't tried to make him fit a certain definition of normal, he may have lived for twenty or thirty more years. Who knows what he could have accomplished.

I had heard of Turing, but didn't know the full story. It wasn't until the nineties that Britain revealed Turing cracked the Enigma code. It wasn't until 2013 that the Queen pardoned him, which seems absolutely insane. How did it take that long?