Origin of the Computer

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2015)

I saw "The Imitation Game", Benedict Cumberbatch-August:Osage County, Star Trek Into Darkness; Keira Knightley-Jack Ryan:Shadow recruit, Star Wars:Episode 1-The Phantom Menace; Matthew Goode-Leap Year, Watchmen and Mark Strong-Zero Dark Thirty, Green Lantern.
This movie is based on a true story, in fact it has remained a secret for 50 years. It is the story of how an English mathematician was instrumental in shortening WW2 and also inventing our modern day computers. Benedict plays Alan Turing, the brilliant but quirky genius that was enlisted with a few others to crack the German's enigma code. The Germans used what they called the enigma machine-about the size of a typewriter-to communicate their battle plans with each other and the codes were changed every day at midnight. So if the code was not broken by midnight, they would have to start all over the next day. The enigma code had about 159 trillion-that is 159 followed by 18 zeros-different possible combinations and with the time limit, it was pretty well impossible to do. That is, until Benedict decided that he needed a machine to calculate the different possibilities at light speed, and bam, the computer is born-a lot bigger than what you could hold in your hand but it worked. Keira and Matthew were other members on the crack team of code breakers and Mark is the head of the British Secret Service organization called MI6. Alan Turing was not a very likable person; he was brilliant, which made him egotistical but he did not understand how to interact with people-for instance, he did not understand the basics of a joke. He was also a closeted homosexual, which was a big taboo at that time-1950's-in England. In fact, homosexuals were arrested for gross indecency.The movie also jumps back and forth through 3 different time periods, the 1930's, the 1940's and the 1950's, covering his earlier childhood-1930's-the war years-1940's-and his later days-1950's. It's rated "PG-13" for sexual references and smoking and has a running time of 1 hour & 54 minutes. I thought it was an interesting story and I would buy it on DVD.