The Imitation Game

For this movie to be perfect, it would have to be less literal and with less Hollywood-like straightforward emotions (A Beautiful Mind), but with more British nobility and reason (Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy). If the main character were black, it would be the most formulaic movie with Academy Award ambitions ever made. Benedict Cumberbatch is, however, excellent. (02/17/2015)

I have no idea how much the film plays with the facts and what it fabricates, but it doesn't really matter because it's a pretty good story, and that's what matters. There are great characters here, with Benedict Cumberbatch quite expectedly leading as one of the best British actors of today. Or is he already? I like that the film has a broader relevance beyond the war subject. (01/12/2015)

Valkyrie, but for the ladies. A less dramatic and slower film, yet still comprehensible than A Beautiful Mind, for instance. Benedict Cumberbatch excels and the is script's playful, precise, and interesting. It only becomes pathetic and descends into sentimentality when Keira Knightley starts flirting. (02/12/2015)

An impressive piece of craftsmanship where weaknesses are hard to find. But that's probably because in a biopic of this calibre that from the beginning aspire to get golden statuettes, mistakes are not allowed. The film is admittedly a very cold, emotionally detached account of a significant period in the life of its equally cold, brilliant hero, who comes across as overly mechanical thanks to the performance of master Cumberbatch, who goes through the entire story with the unchanging expression of a "mathematical nerd", but at the same time it’s an extremely honest, sympathetically old-fashioned genre film that fulfils almost all the prescribed cinematic formulas, including that of Cumberbatch's speech, for there is probably no more believable portrayal of a mathematical nerd. But praise is also due to Alexandre Desplat, the set and costume designers, and especially Mr Turing himself, whose greatness, thanks to this film, I can no longer doubt. 80% (02/15/2015)

Although the story is shot according to a mostly traditional (not to be confused with average) biopic template, thanks to the fantastic actors, great production design, direction, music by Alexandre Desplat and atmosphere, it is easy to forgive a lot of things. The supremely convincing Benedict Cumberbatch should have been given some sort of patent for his oddball roles by now, as great as he is, but the charismatic Mark Strong and Charles Dance don't stay in his shadow and Keira Knightley is more than a mere decoration. It was successful. (02/01/2015)