The Imitation Game

there was not a sliver of innovation or authenticity anywhere in this film. yes, the actors were good, yes the cinematographer was skilled at making shots, yes the dialogue was punchy and witty at times, but there was nothing being said or felt. it went the most banal, "hollywood" route, right down to the overbearing music that beats you over the head with the "emotionality" of the scene. the imitation game is, alas, an imitation of tropes played out too often in the past. in a word, stale.

I spent the two hour runtime imitating someone interested. The scenes of bombers and tanks randomly thrown in are jarring in comparison to what could've for all intents and purposes been a chamber drama. There isn't much visual stimulation at play aside from trying desperately to decipher what exactly is wrong with Benedict Cumberbatch's face, and then once you've given up on that, why it doesn't really matter anyways. He's like a handsome Willem Dafoe or an ugly Tilda Swinton. I think.

The true story of Alan Turing is naturally moving, and that transfers to this film, but it makes the Hollywood approach pale in comparison. An undeniably well-made film with a bravura performance by Cumberbatch that sadly felt the need to add overdramatic, ahistoric interpolations and to set an outstanding example of what it means to be Oscar bait.

A fine (if somewhat conservative, old-fashioned & restrained) biopic on someone of great historic & cultural importance. The film has "Oscar bait" written all over it. Cumberbatch's performance is worth recognition--it is sort of a greatest hits of the introverted, genius, & repressed characters he's played in the last 5 years or so. He alone makes the movie more human and less phony. The story could be seen as empowering & timely for many identity politics issues of today.

That was okay, then suddenly we get some lame Hollywood Important message ending and a lil icing on the cake "Alan Turing killed himself so dead at 41" and I snort laughed like an asshole.