The Imitation Game [Blu-ray]

THE IMITATION GAME [2014 / 2015] [Blu-ray] The Best British Film of the Year! Benedict Cumberbatch Is Outstanding! Based On The Incredible True Story of Alan Turing!During the darkest days of World War II, the British government enlist the help of mathematician Alan Turing to crack Enigma, the unbreakable German encryption device. Alan Turing and his team of code breakers must unlock the Enigma Code before their operation is infiltrated and more lives are lost.An intense and gripping thriller, ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ tells the incredible true story of unsung war hero Alan Turing, featuring a standout performance from Benedict Cumberbatch [‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,’ TV’s ‘Sherlock’], alongside Keira Knightley [‘Atonement’] and a top-notch ensemble cast.FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 2015 Academy Awards®: Win: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for Graham Moore. Nominated: Best Motion Picture of the Year for Ido Ostrowsky, Nora Grossman and Teddy Schwarzman. Nominated: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Benedict Cumberbatch. Nominated: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Keira Knightley. Nominated: Best Achievement in Directing for Morten Tyldum. Nominated: Best Achievement in Film Editing for William Goldenberg. Nominated: Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score for Alexandre Desplat. Nominated: Best Achievement in Production Design for Maria Djurkovic (production design) and Tatiana Macdonald (set decoration). 2015 Golden Globes® Awards: Nominated: Best Motion Picture for Drama. Nominated: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture in a Drama for Benedict Cumberbatch. Nominated: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for Keira Knightley. Nominated: Best Screenplay in a Motion Picture for Graham Moore. Nominated: Best Original Score in a Motion Picture for Alexandre Desplat. 2015 BAFTA® Awards: Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film: Nominated: Graham Moore, Ido Ostrowsky, Morten Tyldum, Nora Grossman and Teddy Schwarzman. BAFTA Film Award: Nominated: Best Leading Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch. Nominated: Best Supporting Actress for Keira Knightley. Nominated: Best Adapted Screenplay for Graham Moore. Nominated: Best Editing for William Goldenberg. Nominated: Best Costume Design for Sammy Sheldon. Nominated: Best Production Design for Maria Djurkovic and Tatiana Macdonald. Nominated: Best Sound for Andy Kennedy, John Midgley, Lee Walpole, Martin Jensen and Stuart Hilliker. Nominated: Best Film for Ido Ostrowsky, Nora Grossman and Teddy Schwarzman.Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance, Mark Strong, James Northcote, Tom Goodman-Hill, Steven Waddington, Ilan Goodman, Jack Tarlton, Alex Lawther, Jack Bannon, Tuppence Middleton, Dominic Charman, James G. Nunn, Charlie Manton, David Charkham, Victoria Wicks, Andrew Havill, Laurence Kennedy, Tim van Eyken, Will Bowden, Miranda Bell, Tim Steed, Winston Churchill (archive footage) (uncredited), Adolf Hitler (archive footage) (uncredited), Harry S. Truman (archive footage) (uncredited), Lee Asquith-Coe (uncredited), Lauren Beacham (uncredited), Ingrid Benussi (uncredited), Carmen Coupeau Borras (uncredited), Ancuta Breaban (uncredited), Peter Brown (uncredited), Alex Corbet Burcher (uncredited), Daniel Chapple (uncredited), Alexander Cooper (uncredited), Chris Cowlin (uncredited), Kirsty-Marie Day (uncredited), Sam Exley (uncredited), Ben Farrow (uncredited), Mike Firth (uncredited), Leigh Holland (uncredited), Luke Hope (uncredited), Stuart Matthews (uncredited), Amber-Rose May (uncredited), Joseph Oliveira (uncredited), Adam Scown (uncredited), Scott Stevenson (uncredited), Mark Underwood (uncredited), Nicola-Jayne Wells (uncredited) and Josh Wichard (uncredited)Director: Morten TyldumProducers: Graham Moore, Ido Ostrowsky, Nora Grossman, Peter Heslop and Teddy SchwarzmanScreenplay: Graham Moore and Andrew Hodges (book)Composer: Alexandre DesplatCinematography: Óscar FauraVideo Resolution: 1080p (Colour) and Black-and-White (archive footage)Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo and English: 2.0 LPCM Stereo [Audio Description]Subtitles: English SDHRunning Time: 114 minutesRegion: Region B/2Number of discs: 1Studio: The Weinstein Company / StudioCanalAndrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ [2014] is a highly conventional film about a profoundly unusual man and this is not entirely a bad thing. Alan Turing’s tragically shortened life and he was 41 when he died in 1954 and is a very complex and fascinating story, bristling with ideas and present-day implications, and it benefits from the streamlined structure and accessible presentation of modern prestige cinema. The science is not too difficult to understand, the emotions are clear and very emphatic, and the truth of history is respected just enough to make room for a very tidy and engrossing drama.An Alan Turing biopic is, all in all, a very welcome thing. Chances are that you are reading this, as I have written this, on a device that came into being partly as a result of papers that Alan Turing published in the 1930s exploring the possibility of what he called a “universal machine.” Alan Turing’s decisive contribution to the breaking of the Nazi “ENIGMA CODE” gave the Allied forces an intelligence advantage that helped defeat Germany, though the extent of his wartime role was kept secret for many years. The secret of his homosexuality was revealed when he was arrested on indecency charges in 1952, and also caught up in a Cold War climate of homophobia and political paranoia and subjected to the pseudoscientific cruelty of the British judicial system.All of this is a lot for a single film to take in, and ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Graham Moore, prunes and compresses a narrative laid out most comprehensively in Andrew Hodges’s scrupulous and enthralling 1983 biography. The film interweaves three decisive periods in Alan Turing’s life, using his interrogation by a Manchester Detective Robert Nock [Rory Kinnear] as a framing device. Alan Turing tells the investigator who thinks he is after a Soviet spy rather than a gay man is about what he did during the war. Later, there are flashbacks of Alan Turing’s school days, where he discovered the joys of cryptography and fell in love with a slightly older boy named Christopher Morcom [Jack Bannon].The adult Alan Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is ny his younger self Christopher Morcom [Alex Lawther], expanding his repertoire of socially awkward intellectual prodigies, real and fictional. What has made Benedict Cumberbatch so effective and what makes his Alan Turing character personality one of the year’s finest pieces of screen acting ever seen in many a year and is his curious ability to suggest cold detachment and acute sensitivity at the same time. If Alan Turing did not exist, 21st century popular culture would have to invent him, especially Benedict Cumberbatch showing his character Alan Turing as a sentient robot, an empathetic space alien, or a warm-blooded salamander with crazy sex appeal.Benedict Cumberbatch’s Alan Turing, whom the film seems to place somewhere on the autism spectrum, is as socially awkward as he is intellectually agile. On top of all that Benedict Cumberbatch’s Alan Turing, can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal. Jokes fly over his head, sarcasm does not register either, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Alan Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation. But most importantly, Benedict Cumberbatch gives and Oscar® worthy performance.‘THE IMITATION GAME’ derives some easy amusement from the friction between this “odd ball” and the prevailing culture of his native country of Great Britain. The film’s notion of Britain and of course not inaccurate, but also not hugely insightful and is as a land of understatement, indirection and steadfast obedience to norms of behaviour that seem, to a fiercely logical mind like Alan Turing’s, arbitrary and incomprehensible. At Bletchley Park, the country estate where teams of linguists and mathematicians are working under military supervision to break the “ENIGMA CODE,” Alan Turing is seen as stubborn and arrogant and the head of Bletchley Park, Commander Denniston [Charles Dance], finds him totally insufferable, as does Hugh Alexander [Matthew Goode], the suave, clever playboy who runs the “ENIGMA CODE” project until Alan Turing, with an off-screen assistant from Winston Churchill, displaces Hugh Alexander.The Bletchley Park section, which is enlivened by the indispensably charming Joan Clarke [Keira Knightley] as the only woman on the ENIGMA team, who is at the heart of this film, though it is also the most familiar and in some ways the least challenging part. Director Morten Tyldum orchestrates a swift and suspenseful race against the clock with a few touches of intrigue and ethical uncertainty. Mark Strong as Stewart Menzies pops out of the shadows now as a silky, cynical MI6 spymaster, perhaps the only person in the British political establishment who fully appreciated Alan Turing’s oddity and his total genius mind.‘THE IMITATION GAME’ meanwhile, settles for a partial appreciation. Alan Turing’s sexuality is mystified and marginalized, treated as an abstraction and a plot point. There is no sense that, between his chaste, intense and brief passion for Christopher Morcom and the anonymous encounter that led indirectly to his arrest, love, sex or romance played any significant part in Alan Turing’s life at all. Andrew Hodges’s biography, threaded with quotations from Walt Whitman, gives eloquent and sensitive testimony to the contrary. For their part, the filmmakers, though willing to treat Alan Turing as a victim of bigotry and repression, also nudge him back toward the closet, imposing a discretion that is at once self-protective and self-congratulatory.Ultimately, ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ doesn’t need any kind of banal catchphrases to show us that Alan Turing is a savant who sees and feels the world differently than most other people, because it’s there in every inch of Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance, especially in the rigid way he carries himself, as if he were two sizes too big for his own body, and in his pained realisation that he can never fully decipher the code of ordinary human interaction. And Keira Knightley who’s reliably more interesting as misfits and proves every bit his equal as the brilliant Joan Clarke, another societal square peg blithely unconcerned by the era’s demeaning conception of womanly ability.Top-flight craft contributions add to the overall classy feel, particularly the lush, contrasting 35mm lensing of Spanish cinematographer Oscar Faura [‘The Impossible’], the cluttered desks and primitive computing machines of production designer Maria Djurkovic [‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’], and a piano-and-strings score by Alexandre Desplat that catches something of Alan Turing’s anxious, uneasy spirit and especially complex, impeccably executed and unique. The action ignites when, after two years of effort, Alan Turing invents his Enigma-busting machine, a proto-computer geared to break a code that the Nazis change every 24 hours. It's been a long time since intellectual sparring partners created such excitement onscreen. I've heard a few critics dismiss this mind-bender as hopelessly old-hat. Balderdash, I say long live retro.Blu-ray Video Quality – With two excellent professional companies like StudioCanal and The Weinstein Company it is only natural to bring you a beautiful encoded 1080p encoded image and an equally impressive 2.35:1 aspect ratio and the transfer is totally outstanding. The picture is of a very high detailed image, black levels and shadow detail are really excellent, and an appropriate level of grain presents the viewer with a very pleasing, film-like appearance. Colours can be somewhat muted by design, but at least they are consistent and accurate throughout, especially depicting the era in the Second World War. Cinematographer by Oscar Faura works superbly well and shows off the film's Academy Award® nominated production design to its fullest potential, which again faithfully recreates the look of World War II era in England. Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.Blu-ray Audio Quality – With two excellent professional companies like The Weinstein Company and StudioCanal it is only natural to bring you an equally impressive 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio that is a very enjoyable audio experience. Dialogue is mostly confined to the centre channel which is very clear and also very understandable throughout the film. There are a few brief scenes of war which provide some dramatic audio punch when the aircraft are in the air. Ambient sounds of rain are very realistic, and when Alan Turing's machine is turned on the surround channels give the viewer the feeling of being present at that moment in time. The wonderful Academy Award® nominated original film score by Alexandre Desplat is given a wide and very pleasing audio soundstage experience. This is not quite a demonstration audio disc, but it does what it does extremely well, to really give you something truly special.Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:Special Feature: Making ‘The Imitation Game’ [2014] [1080p] [2.35:1] [14:14] Here we get an in-depth look at the characters and plot of the film, and it also includes a nice background look at the real-life Alan Turing and his work on cracking the Enigma code during World War II and also featuring the people assembled to break the Enigma machine, the process of breaking the code, the repercussions of breaking the code, the consequences of Alan Turing's homosexuality and eventually his sad downfall. They talk about how the Enigma machine was a hidden secret long after the Second World War had finished. They all agree that Alan Turing was the hero of the hour, in being such a forward thinking genius and Benedict Cumberbatch felt Alan Turing had to stand up to himself, because of his past and of course helped to shorten the Second World War by of course inventing the “Enigma” machine. They talk about other films depicting Bletchley Park, but felt this one had to be totally different slant on the story, that gave it a much more human angle element to the film. They talk about what a wonderful script that was produced that really everyone was gripped when they read it, as normally it takes about 30 minutes reading other scripts, but this took much longer. That is why Benedict Cumberbatch was so very keen to play Alan Turing, as well as the other actors that were also very impressed by the script, as none of them could put it down. But most important they wanted the film to be as accurate historical as possible; as they know historians would soon inform them they have certain historical facts wrong, which would of cost a lot of money to film scenes again. Also very important was to get certain locations right, but one thing they could not film Bletchley Park, so they found this old RAF Bicester Bases in Oxfordshire, and luckily the surrounding buildings were ideal, but luckily they were able to film some scenes inside Bletchley Park and helped the actors to get into the spirit of the film. Because the actual “Enigma” had been dismantled, they had to create their own vision of the massive machine for the film, a sort of replica, and everyone felt it was near perfect compared to the real machine, but of course it would of not been possible without some expert help who knew about the real “Enigma” machine, which of course the replica had a fraction of the components, but despite this it actually had over 5,000 meters of electrical cables, well over 2,000 components and still felt epic in its appearance. But one thing that everyone agreed with is that they thought Benedict Cumberbatch gave a truly wonderful performance and I totally agree with that, especially in showing Alan Turing was a very complex character. But one very important aspect of the film was the clothes that Alan Turing would wear to give Benedict Cumberbatch a more authentic realistic look. So all in all this was a really fascinating look at the behind-the-scene on all aspect of the film ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ and is well worth a view. Contributors include Morten Tyldum [Director], Benedict Cumberbatch [Alan Turing], Keira Knightley [Joan Clarke], Matthew Goode [Hugh Alexander], Graham Moore [Screenwriter & Executive Producer], Ido Ostrowsky [Producer], mark Strong [Stewart Menzies], Maria Djurkovic [Production Designer], David Broder [Location Manager], Marco Restivo [Art Director], John Pickles [Bletchley Park Volunteer], Allan Leech [John Cairncross], Charles Dance [Alexander "Alastair" Guthrie Denniston CMG CBE CB RNVR], Ivana Primorac [Hair & Make-Up Designer], Sammy Sheldon [Costume Designer] and Matthew Bear [Peter Hilton].Special Feature: Alan Turing: Man and Enigma [2014] [1080p] [2.35:1] [13:51] Here we take an in-depth look at the man Alan Turing himself, and what made him such a total genius, and especially a lot of people did not know much about the life and times of Alan Turing before the film ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ was ever thought of being filmed, especially as Alan Turing only lived on this planet for just 40 years and especially for the man who invented the computer, especially in the past Americans were always stating they invented the computer, and of course Alan Turing helped shorten the Second World War by two years, because as already stated he was a total genius and was not recognised at the time for building the “Enigma” machine, but Alan Turing was also a scientist, a philosopher, and of course an inventor, but most importantly he was totally ahead of his time. But sadly in his early youth, especially being an outsider, yet born at the heart of the British Empire at its zenith and went to the Sherborne School, that was classic English public school in the town of Sherborne, Dorset, in south-west England, and in his early youth was constantly bullied because they felt he was not like them, but when Alan Turing was 16 he met a boy called Christopher Morcom, who became his one true friend and who was also very interested in science. Christopher became Alan’s best friend, and probably his first big crush. But when Christopher died, which affected Alan greatly suddenly a couple of years later, Alan partly helped deal with his grief with science, by studying whether the mind was made of matter, and where and if anywhere, the mind went when someone died and of course that is why Alan named the “Enigma” machine “Christopher” in honour of his friend. They also talk about how Alan Turing who was always pushing himself to go that little bit further to solve a difficult puzzle, but of course in pursuing this outlook caused him to become a loner and especially did not like working as a team, but of course slowly over time Alan changed, but on top of all that he also hated social function, as he felt like a fish out of water, so making him like a chameleon. But also most important was his sexuality, which at the time it was illegal to be a homosexual, but despite this Alan had a strong bonded friendship with Joan Clarke. But of course when he was chemically castrated via drugs, that reduces your libido and sexual activity it really affected him greatly and especially emotionally and caused his downward spiral to deep depression and eventually committing suicide in 1954 by dipping an apple into cyanide and eating the apple, and of course it was a total shameful act by the Government at the time in what they did to this genius and if he had been able to live like he wanted he probably would of gone onto greater strides in technology, and in 2013 Alan Turing the computer pioneer and codebreaker was been given a posthumous royal pardon, which addresses his 1952 conviction for gross indecency and again who was chemically castrated. The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling and endorsed by Her Majesty the Queen. The pardon came into effect on the 24th December 2013, because many people had campaigned for many years to win a pardon for Alan Turing. But of course the film was a dedication towards the genius that was Alan Turing and of course today the majority of people have taken this genius for granted, especially in our lives today computers, tablets and smart phones would not be here today or even happen without the brilliant genius mind of Alan Turing. Once again, all in all this is a really nice special feature and again honouring a man who was so ahead of his time. Contributors include Morten Tyldum [Director], Benedict Cumberbatch [Alan Turing], Graham Moore [Screenwriter & Executive Producer], Teddy Schwarzman [Producer], Dermot Turing [Nephew of Alan Turing], Allen Leech [John Cairncross], Marco Restivo [Art Director], Charles Dance [Alexander "Alastair" Guthrie Denniston CMG CBE CB RNVR], Mattew beard [Peter Hilton], Keira Knightly [Joan Clarke], Mark Strong [Stewart Menzies] and Matthew Goode [Hugh Alexander].Special Feature: The Heroes Of Bletchley [2014] [1080p] [1.78:1] [7:33] ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ cast and crew discuss Bletchley Park: what it would have been like to work in such an incredible place and its pivotal role in ending World War 2. They talk about the fact that Bletchley Park was a very secretive code breaking facility during the war, and the Government employed and brought these very eccentric people together under one roof who were basically a bunch of “Super Heroes” with special powers that other people in authority did not understand, who especially wore tank tops and tweeds. They recruited chess champions; they recruited mathematicians, who especially loved cracking puzzles, and they worked incredible long hours, and because of this, literally lived in Bletchley Park. With regards to Joan Clarke who eventually became Head of Hut 8 in 1944. Joan Clarke carried on code breaking even after the war, and went onto work at the secret GCHQ organisation and eventually was awarded the MBE in 1947 for her sterling work during the Second World War. But despite all the pressure they had put upon these special brainy people, they managed to kept up their spirits and there was also a great camaraderie atmosphere, which spearheaded the intelligence, in their endeavour to win the war. Bletchley Park went from a cottage industry to a huge industrial code breaking factory and at the start of the war housed 200 people to eventually 9,000 people, and of course one of the best kept secret of the Second World War and again helped shorten the war by two years and because they were extraordinary, and they should not be forgotten, as they were the true heroes of the war effort in thwarting the advance of the Nazi offensive. Despite this special feature being very short, it still packs a lot of information and is still very interesting in hearing their comments. Contributors include Mark Strong [Stewart Menzies], Tom Briggs [Bletchley Park Education Officer], Ian Standen [CEO Bletchley Park], Matthew Beard [Peter Hilton], Teddy Schwarzman [Producer], Matthew Goode [Hugh Alexander], Benedict Cumberbatch [Alan Turing], Maria Djurkovic [Production Designer], Victoria Worpole [Director Learning and Collections of Bletchley Park Trust], Allen Leech [John Cairncross], Keira Knightley [Joan Clarke] and Morten Tyldum [Director].Trailers: Here you have a selection of four trailers and they are as follows: ‘Before I Go To Sleep’ [2014] [1080p [2.35:1] [2:15]; ‘RUSH’ [2013] [1080p] [2.35:1] [2:35]; Maltesers TV Advert [2015] [1080p] [1.78:1] [00:32] and ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ [2011] [1080p] [2.35:1] [1:53]Finally, ‘THE IMITATION GAME’ [2014] works really well in creating a moving story about an incredible person of Alan Turing and his co-workers that did such sterling, astonishing work during the Second World War, and also a look at the tragic true real-life story about Alan Turing in showing us how a brilliant but socially inept man accomplished the impossible by breaking the supposedly impregnable “ENIGMA CODE” during World War II. This is a wonderful exciting film which will have viewers glued to their seats from start to finish. It is one of the best films of 2014 and this Blu-ray edition is essentially flawless and is an engrossing and poignant tour de force thriller, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s excellent performance gives added complexity to a fine account of the life and times of the brilliant codebreaker Alan Turing, it also is surprisingly humorous and it also manages to nail the emotional moments in the film and deserved all the Awards and Nominations it received. Very Highly Recommended!Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film AficionadoLe Cinema ParadisoUnited Kingdom

Alan Turing (1912-54) is no longer alive to forgive us, adding to the remorse some feel in needing to be forgiven by him. This complication arises because a great wrong was done to a great man in a time of great ignorance and intolerance. Hounded and persecuted, he was driven to suicide at age 41 by a perverse morality that criminalised him for his nature — that of preferring the intimate company of men over women. Why should this have mattered? It didn’t, or shouldn’t have. So it’s a question many still ask and are troubled by.Among other things, Turing was a hero and mathematical genius. He helped save Britain and defeat the Nazis in the Second World War, invented the computer and AI, and was the first to apply mathematics to the studies of zoology and botany, discovering why, for instance, the leopard has spots and the zebra stripes. He called this process morphogenesis, the study of the shapes and patterns in living organisms.During the war he was recruited from Cambridge by MI5 to work at Bletchley Park, the secretive but now famous intelligence-gathering unit tasked with breaking the “unbreakable” German military code called Enigma. The problem looked insurmountable because the permutations of Enigma were nearly endless, millions of combinations of code changed daily by the code senders. A human mind, or series of human minds working in concert together, might take weeks to run through the combinations with paper and pencil. But weeks were useless when Enigma’s settings could be changed daily (and were) by the Germans. Thus Britain was gradually losing the war to this sinister machine, its warships and destroyers routinely a step behind that of the German U-boats at sea.So Turing thought the obvious: if human minds can’t solve the riddle, maybe a machine can. But none existed. It would have to be invented. Thus out of desperation and the visions of a genius the computer was born, a machine that could compute (meaning think) faster than humans can. Some say Turing and his machine represent the biggest shift in human culture since Gutenberg. The returns are still coming in, but it seems so. Our human world now is constructed on digitalised information. Even our money is invisible, primarily stored as binary code in the minds of computers, not as banknotes in vaults. The machines are already on the way to running the show. A time is coming when your flight from London to New York will be flown without a pilot and you’ll think nothing of it.In 1950, Turing wrote an article on AI called The Imitation Game, generally understood to be a synonym for the Turing Test. His central question was: “Can machines think?” And by that he really meant: “Can machines imitate or mimic human thought so well that a human observer might be fooled into thinking the machine is human?” The question is important because a lot hinges on the answer. If, for instance, the observer can be fooled, what’s next? What does this imply for man and civilisation? We can’t answer it yet, but we know enough already to be unsettled by the question.Turing logically implies in his paper that AI was made inevitable by the construction of computing machines (computers). There’s no turning back, in other words, to a time of previous innocence before the machines existed. Human intellect, he also implies, is no match for the exponential intellectual powers of machines. Thus he was among the first to see into the future. He also foresaw that AI would force redefinitions of humanity on us, and this is exactly where we are at the moment — absorbed in a philosophical revolution of thought whose manifestations cannot be read yet with any authority.Turing, much like Einstein, was a worrier. He understood better than most the Pandora’s box his mind was opening up. Even now many are way behind on the learning curve. To them AI is just a form of sci-fi entertainment. But it won’t be so entertaining in the future when the terminators are programmed to terminate us if they can be, and you can be sure that some humans among us will try, human mendacity and history being what it is.This film does not spend its time going into all this, but the genesis of it is there just the same. What we mostly see is the struggle of a brilliant mind with the incomprehensible, with a problem so difficult it may as well be impossible. That he could solve it is almost beyond belief, a god-like accomplishment with few precedents. Radar helped win the war — this is true. Likewise heroic were the RAF and the Americans at D-Day and beyond. But without Turing and his team the Nazi menace might have trampled over all of us. We’ll never know, and we can thank Turing for it.Benedict Cumberbatch received an Oscar nomination for his turn as Turing. Seeing the film you can understand why. We’ll never know in detail who Alan Turing was because he can’t be duplicated. But put on your blindfold and maybe Cumberbatch passes another kind of Turing Test — the one of becoming Alan Turing. I doubt a better effort can be made. Derek Jacobi is wonderful in an earlier version of the Turing story (Breaking the Code, 1996). But Cumberbatch raises the bar even higher, so to speak.What he brings as Turing is what Turing himself must have brought — manic determination, a will to succeed that defies logic. The demons he fights are many and various: Hitler, the Enigma, time, his superiors, budget constraints, his own health, sexuality, nerves, doubts and the finite number of grey cells in his brain. The key that opens the door must fit a million locks or more. He’s essentially told it can’t be unlocked, yet is ordered to find a way to open it. If we want to turn to myth, Odysseus on his long, hazardous voyage provides a good image. His goal is the Golden Fleece, heretofore unfound by all mortals who have sought it. Odysseus, as we know, perseveres. So does Turing.The Golden Fleece moment in the film, if it can be called that, doesn’t come at Bletchley proper where all the hard work is being done. Creativity seldom works this way, as it’s far more stealthy in spirit. Inspiration, as most artists and thinkers know, arrives from unexpected quarters: not from the studio or blackboard, but from the bath tub, say, or from a dream or walk in the park with the dog. Turing’s moment, modestly and homely enough, came in a British pub. He and his colleagues were unwinding after yet another long, draining, exasperating day in code with the dreadful Germans. Then, just like that, over beers, the epiphany arrived via a stray comment made by a fellow English decoder at their table.Turing freezes, stares into a place of insight hidden from the others. The eyes widen and in them we see wonder and recognition. He jumps from his seat and shouts dementedly, “Germany has just lost the bloody the war!” Beer is spilt, the tab unpaid, the code breakers dashing up the path to Bletchley. There they race past security guards, then to their ciphers and the huge computing machine Turing has nicknamed Christopher (after his dearest schoolboy friend whose young death Turing never got over). It’s the world’s first prototype computer. They input new information into it. Rotors rotate and millions of numbers continue to spin. Then the rotors click into place and stop, the entire machine coming to a peaceful halt. This hasn’t happened before. The codebreakers, breathless, look at the machine, then at themselves.They take the sequence of numbers given to them by Christopher and type a sequence of letters into their Enigma (gifted to them by the Polish Navy which scavenged it from a German vessel in the Baltic). Out comes a coded message in German, a weather report for the North Atlantic at 6:00 a.m. along with coordinates for an attack on British ships in the area.Code broken. Minds trying to absorb the fact. Stunned silence. Disbelief. Then rapturous joy and tearful embraces. Turing looks exhausted, as befits a man who has just won the war for Britain and its Allies. From here on out Germany will have no secrets, Enigma no longer enigmatic. The sell-by date of the Thousand Year Reich has come rather earlier than expected.This film is a celebration of many things — of genius, ingenuity, improvisation, faith, determination, perseverance and heroism. It’s also a morality tale of good and evil, virtue versus vice.But in ironic counterpoint to the heroism of Turing is the callousness and cowardice of the British establishment in its treatment of him after the war. Yes, he was brilliant and we acknowledge his contribution to the war effort, thinks the government. But we must be practical and realistic. The war is over but a new one is on our hands now with the Russians. Turing is unpredictable, hard to control, a loose cannon. His access to sensitive intelligence makes him potentially dangerous, a liability to be closely monitored. Who knows who he is consorting with, as we’re very aware of his deviancies in private life? Why is he making these trips to Norway, Switzerland, and other strange places most Britons do not visit?These events are not shown in the film but underpin the suspicion the government has toward Turing. None who worked at Bletchley were allowed to talk. Ever. As in perpetuity. They were sworn to secrecy under the Official Secrets Act.Sometimes all that’s needed to destroy a person is enough doubt and suspicion. The government would not have wanted Turing dead, but it succeeded indirectly in killing him through harassment that led to his suicide.Since those awful cold-war times the government has tried to make amends publicly. In 2009 it apologised for the “appalling” way in which Turing had been treated after the war. Then in 2013 Queen Elizabeth II signed a pardon, overturning his 1952 conviction of gross indecency.In addition, there have been posthumous honours bestowed on him from universities and research institutions around the world, far too numerous to list here.But another mildly amusing indication of his fame in recent years in his inclusion in the list of 100 Greatest Britons (conducted by public polling in 2002). He ranks no. 21 on it, higher than the two Davids (Bowie and Beckham, nos. 29 and 33, respectively), but lower than Princess Diana (no. 3), a person thought to be more important in the cultural life and history of Britain than Charles Darwin (no. 4), William Shakespeare (no. 5) and Sir Isaac Newton (no. 6). Of course on one level it’s quite silly, frivolous and pitiful, as most similar lists are. But not entirely. It does mean he is known, remembered and appreciated by the public, at least in Britain, so his gifts and accomplishments have not been completely lost to the world. In fact, his public profile has never been higher, as the making of this film probably attests.We can’t go back to right the wrongs of the past, but maybe an important step toward not repeating them with others is to publicly acknowledge them as wrong. In this sense Turing lives on as a symbol of much needed tolerance and acceptance. And so, at the risk of sounding maudlin, we can say we’re thankful for what he did for us and sorry for what we did to him.Finally, I apologise for not writing more directly about the film. I thought it more important to say some cogent things about Turing than to analyse the film in detail, thinking readers can go to other reviews to get descriptions of it. But I’ll close by saying it’s beautiful, deserving of both five stars and, more importantly, all the awards it has received, including an Academy Award. You will not be disappointed. Or I hope you aren’t. I found it deeply moving.

I really enjoyed this film.It was interesting to hear the story behind how the enigma was cracked and Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley in the same film was very likely to be something I would enjoy.

I was outraged by how this hero was treated by his own country as gratitude for his service, it was shocking and disgusting he should have been given a knighthood for his invaluable service rewarded and nutured. Encouraged to continue his research and development instead he was treated inhumanely by ignorant narrow minded people with small minds. However a good performance and an interesting film

Great film