The Imitation Game

When you think of the greatest names to come out of the world changing event that was World War 2, you don't usually think of the name Alan Turing.

And yet at the end of this movie you figure out the full impact this guy and his team of British cryptographers did for the Allied efforts in World War 2 and its actually kind of amazing to think about.

I remember in 2014, this movie came up for a couple of awards during Oscar season and I also remember it being a very tough year because there were a lot of great movies that came out around this time. So I guess my question is, how good is The Imitation Game and did it deserve all the accolades that it received?

The Imitation Game stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing. Turing is a brilliant mathematician who joins the British military at the start of World War 2. He joins a top secret section of the military set on breaking the German codes.

The largest goal of this group, and Turing's objective is to break the most difficult codes ever mustered by the German forces, the codes created through the new German code maker, Enigma.

Turing is not a linguist and he does not speak a lick of German but he says in the beginning that he is very fond of puzzles and Engima to him is the most challenging puzzle he ever sets off to solve.

He of course is set in a group of cryptographers including Hugh Alexander (played by Matthew Goode) and others handpicked by the commander of the intelligence branch they're working out of (played by Charles Dance) and a mysterious MI6 agent (played by Mark Strong).

Eventually Turing becomes the leader of the select group setting out to break the Enigma code, and with the help of a woman who would be later known as a famous Cryptanalyst named Joan Clark (played by Kiera Knightley), Turing and his team begins the initial design for a machine that can break the code as well as develop the world's first rendition of a computer.

And in turn you get one of the most subdued World War 2 films you will probably ever get but at the same time an incredibly important event.

The funny part about this story is that it was so top secret for so long that when you think of World War 2 history, you would never think of the name Alan Turing as one of the heroes of the war, but if any of this movie is true, him and his team were incredibly essential heroes. Now of course there are liberties taken in the film to keep it dramatic and interesting and I don't know how much of an impact they actually had but I have no doubt that they did have impact on the war and now that its years later and this stuff is no longer classified, its time this story is told.

There's a great line in the movie where he says that everyone thinks that World War 2 was just a series of numbers and statistics that him and his intelligence guys were able to predict. I had a weird reaction to this because it doesn't just lift the importance of the work Turing did, but it kind of diminishes the work of other heroes you know from WW2 and the sacrifices they made. There's a bit of a melancholic feeling you get while watching this movie. Again, I go back to the liberties taken with the film and it all has to be put in context, but that was the one thing that pulled me back a little bit.

The interesting thing about this film is that while it is a movie set in World War 2, it doesn't exactly feel like a war movie. The decrypting German code is one element, but then there is the fact that Turing basically created the worlds first computer and he was creating something that nobody understood or could comprehend. Something that has expanded so much since that I am typing this entry on a much more advanced version of that original idea.

The best thing I can compare this to is the movie Steve Jobs. All of the Jobs biopics have centered on the idea that Steve Jobs had this vision for something and looked at the world through a lens that nobody could understand and even criticized him for seeing it through.

Turing is almost a more interesting case because of his obvious social awkwardness and the inference made in the movie that his brain was wired in a different way. You can see it in the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch that Turing is a bit of an odd ball and didn't get along with other people as easily because of the way his mind worked and the way he processes things.

But then there's a third layer of this film that brings it down to earth on a very personal level and I guess the reason the LGBT community praised this movie so much.

Alan Turing was a homosexual at a time where being gay was illegal in Great Britain. His career and his legacy seem to hinge so much on the fact that he was gay and perhaps not given the credit he deserved because of it. I would argue that we also didn't hear about it because it was classified by the British government for so long and we're hearing about it now because its no longer a secret, but that shouldn't negate the fact that this is a very harrowing story of a man facing a lot of adversity and challenges because of his sexual preference.

And holy shit does Benedict Cumberbatch bring a strong performance to this very complicated character. Not only is he playing a gay man, not only is he playing the grandfather of modern computers, but he's also playing a guy who saw the world in a different way and didn't communicate the same way "normal" people do. It's a really profound performance and it doesn't surprise me that Cumberbatch was nominated for best actor in 2014. I can't say I would have chosen his performance over Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, but it's still a great performance none the less.

The one issue with the rest of the cast is not necessarily a criticism of their performance.

Because Cumberbatch is so good in this film, he really takes center stage and while the rest of the actors and actresses in the film are good, they don't get nearly as much opportunity to shine as much and I can't really say I was blown away by the other performances.

Kiera Knightly as Joan Clarke was good for sure, but it was not a performance that blew me away. And the same goes for the rest of the cast. They were definitely good don't get me wrong, but I've seen Charles Dance in that Tywin Lannister commander sort of role, I've seen Mark Strong give a good performance before. Nothing about the supporting characters of The Imitation Game really stood out. Cumberbatch is the main star and he's the one who is able to shine the most.

Ultimately, The Imitation Game is a good film. It delves into the parts of WWII that were unknown to us before and it has a good message about the trials that homosexuals have gone through in the past.

It is a multifaceted film with a lot of layers, a lot of good performances but Cumberbatch is the reason to see this movie. I'm not exactly bummed that I didn't check this movie out when it first came out but I'm glad I finally did get around to seeing it. If you're looking for any insight into where it stood in the rankings of films that came out in 2014 that were up for Oscars, I can't say for certain since I haven't seen all of them. I'd say its a strong film but I've seen better ones.

The Imitation Game is available on Netflix for the time being so you would be doing yourself a favor to check it out. Its a fun history lesson of a side of WWII that we don't always think of.

But those are my thoughts on The Imitation Game. What did you think of it? Did you think that it deserved more recognition in 2014's award season? Tell me what you think in the comments below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your request for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog!

I'll leave you with this. This might be a cop out just giving you a Fallon clip, but they're available and I have a couple of other reviews to knock out tonight! Enjoy!