Engrossing but obviously fictionalized in parts

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2015)

This is a very engrossing WW2 dramatization of the breaking of the Nazi's Enigma code by a group of code breakers in the English countryside. Well produced exciting and dramatic and moving especially how they use the brain to defeat the enemy.
However there are some faults. There are some things wrong with the screenplay. Most glaringly there are historical inaccuracies for dramatic storytelling purposes that are obvious even without reading up about them. The part about possibly saving the brother of a team member is too hard to believe. And how they had to decide how to use the information - it is ludicrous that they would be in charge of that. The main breakthrough is too sudden to be believable. The military person played by Charles Dance seems exaggerated to be a dramatic obstacle. The shifting back and forth in time was a bit too much. It would have been better to have had the arrest for homosexual behavior all at the end instead of interspersed throughout.
The acting is good. Kiera is too beautiful for the role but it doesn't matter because it makes it watchable. Who would have wanted to see a plain Jane as the only main female character. Maybe someone plainer like Emily Blunt would have been more like the real person. Matthew Goode and Downton Abbey's Allen Leech provide support as other members of the team. Benedict Cumberbatch looks suitably vulnerable and plays it very Sheldon Cooper eccentric. Read that in real life Alan Turing he wasn't really so odd.
Better not to read up on the fact vs fiction beforehand as it will spoil the experience, so just accept the inaccuracies as dramatic leeway to make a possibly rather dry story dramatic.
Worth a watch if too theatrical.