Amazing story and character, OK movie

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2017)

The Imitation Game tells an amazing story about an amazing man, the British scientist Alan Turin, one of the fathers of computer science. Overall, the film is very enjoyable and has, a priori, everything to succeed -- great actors, an interesting story, and a fascinating historical period. However, the production, direction, and script ruined it for me. I find surprising that the script won an Oscar, really unbelievable.
The main flaw of the movie is the lack of focus. The historical episode and Turin himself are fascinating subjects. If you want to produce a two-hour movie, you have to choose what you focus on; otherwise, you'll get a movie that is flawed because is all over the place, like a scattered brain. That is, you focus on Turin the man and the scientist and tell his story from childhood to death and all his scientific breakthroughs, or you focus solely on the cracking of the Enigma code. The movie tries to do both things and fails, produces a clichéd and somewhat contrived version of Turin, and the cracking-the-code episode lacks dramatic tempo because the time to build it was used to tell general facts about Turin. I found the double flashback in the movie, really interesting narratively, but it doesn't help much to create an image of Turin that honors the multifaceted person and scientist he was. As a viewer, the film failed to move me and to engage me fully.
The second flaw of the movie is the acting. Don't take me wrong, I think most of the actors do a good job with the material they are given, but only one of them fully shines: Alex Lawther as the young Turin, who is truly superb and believable 100% and he wasn't nominated for any Oscar! Having Cumberbatch and Knightly together in a movie is a real treat, but is their acting in this movie really great? The answer is No. Is their acting better than other performances of theirs in movies for which they weren't nominated to an Oscar? The answer is No!
The third flaw of the film is the atmosphere. Not bad at all, but not good either, and full of cinematic clichés and scenes that were deja vu.It felt more for a TV mini-series than for a film.
Overall, an enjoyable film with an intriguing character, a great performance by Lawther, but way overrated.