Conventional Treatment

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2015)

The Imitation Game is half a historical movie that takes place in the agency side of WWII and half a biography of Alan Turing. The movie introduces with a mission that sets up a plan of building a technology to crack a code while the rest is basically a study of what kind of a man Turing truly is. While both sides are quite gripping in its own distinct interest, the movie rather picks some conventional choices in its storytelling, making it sort of underwhelming and predictable, but its skilled direction and a terrific performance by Benedict Cumberbatch surpasses that fact, thankfully made most of it worth it.
The first hour focuses on how they would break the Enigma code, while it teases some flashbacks where Turing learned his encoding skills. It normally tells this story as a mission out of luck, with a team who are only given little chance to succeed. But there is some sense of complexity on their task, like how the government doubts their promise, or how difficult for Turing to get along with his colleagues, etc. And it structures these scenes pretty well, but how the film resolves each of these events does often feel breezy. The next step of the story is the persecution of Turing's sexuality, which completely shifts the theme. It went from an argument of never underestimating one's capabilities in spite of his alienated attitude, to a sentiment about being tolerant with homosexuals. Both of them tell a good message, but the last one just randomly becomes the entire center of the film.
It just lacks enough concentration, the movie just moves and changes too soon before it actually becomes engaging. Fortunately, it's still a decently crafted film. The pacing is consistently handled, there is also a strong production work. Looking around the structure is simply stunning. The actors did what they have to do, the best of them is obviously Cumberbatch who instantly makes the character interesting while you may also get connected with his eventual personal troubles. He's backed up well with Matthew Goode and Keira Knightley, even though there isn't much about their characters, same with other solid supporting like Mark Strong and Charles Dance who are mostly at the background.
The Imitation Game still holds a fascinating story which remains itself as a good film. It just needs more depth; it needs more breathing for suspense at their mission, as well as it needs more exploration at the sudden shift of Turing's deeper character study. The film just easily jumps into the conventional celebration of the man's work and its effects to the war. But even with all of the contrivance, it's still easy to follow how this historical moment happened, even though its storytelling is not as groundbreaking as Turing's achievement. But to be sure, it clearly didn't rob enough of what makes it interesting.