THE IMITATION GAME

Benedict Cumberbatch

THE IMITATION GAME (2014). Director: Morten Tyldum.

Genius mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch of Star Trek Into Darkness) joins, and eventually takes over, a group of crypto-experts who are trying to crack Germany's Enigma Code. At first Turing is disliked because of his rather obnoxious, superior personality, but eventually he wins the respect of his peers, not only cracking the code but building technology that will eventually lead to the creation of modern-day computers. Unfortunately, he doesn't get his due until long after his death due to his conviction on a homosexual morals charge ...

The Imitation Game is the second film about Turing after the superior Breaking the Code (which also has the much better title with its double meaning), which came out nearly twenty years earlier. This is a splashier, longer, opened-up and bigger-budgeted version but it does not at all improve on the earlier picture. Benedict Cumberbatch gives a good enough performance, but perhaps makes his character more repellent -- especially in the earlier sequences -- than he needs to be; he almost plays it like an old-fashioned "bitchy queen." He is not as good as Derek Jacobi was in the earlier film. A bigger problem with this fictionalized biopic is that it not only tries to deal with his orientation as little as possible -- there are absolutely no sequences showing him even having conversations with other gay men -- but strips the film of true drama (his conviction, trial, etc.) and substitutes some events that I found very suspicious. Dramatic license is one thing, but Imitation just makes up sequences out of whole cloth (like the one when Turing and the others decide not to warn a convoy that is about to be bombed because then the Germans will know they've cracked the code. Sounds reasonable, until you really think about it. )

Like the earlier telefilm, this movie goes back and forth in time when a linear narrative might have been more compelling. There are some good supporting performances from Charles Dance [Victor Frankenstein] as Commander Denniston, and young Alex Lawther as Alan at school (he has a wonderful scene trying not to show how devastated he is by a loving friend's death), among others, but on the whole the picture is a big disappointment and somewhat on the dull side. Perhaps the worst thing is that this film simply accepts that Turing was a suicide when the first film, and some biographies, have suggested that he might have died by accident or even been killed off as a security risk. Who knows? The film was highly acclaimed and made a great deal of money, but since then many people have noted its glaring inaccuracies.

Verdict: Stick to Breaking the Code. **.