The Imitation Game is a polished and efficient drama, and looks great on a comparatively modest budget of 15 million, especially the loving reconstruction of Alan's beautiful machine.
We go into a movie knowing that the subject was as genius or a hero, a martyr or titan. We should leave with a more nuanced understanding of who he was, his complexities and flaws.
The Imitation Game is a classic 'race against time' tale with the added intrigue of how the authorities would deign to use the information they had once Enigma had been cracked.
The Imitation Game retakes the myth, interprets it again and in this is lost something of the innocence of a story turned into legend. [Full review in Spanish]
A strong supporting cast, including Matthew Goode as crypto-analyst Hugh Alexander, Mark Strong as spymaster Stewart Menzies and Charles Dance as head of the codebreaking unit Alastair Denniston, are given tragically little screen time.
It's a film about drive, about imagination, and how brilliance thrives outside the mainstream. These are common enough themes given uncommon purchase in a film about a man who likely saved millions of lives by never fitting in.
[Cumberbatch's] whose portrayal of the British mathematician and WWII code-smasher is a feat of nuanced intelligence, a portrait of anguish with hints of arid humor. And, yes, arrogance.