More Propaganda....

Rating: 5/10 (22 February 2015)

First off, the historical revisionism is testament to the pure and brazen ignorance of the production crew and lack of an historical adviser when this went into production, with the almost terrifyingly obtuse view to making a film that follows the cheap tried and tested Hollywood formula that we've all witnessed a hundred times already.
From the paper boy waving a paper saying bombs were about to be dropped in '1939', to god only knows how many facets of fantasy created out of a well documented Turing's life, and I can't remember accurately right now but I think they even mentioned Churchill as being Prime Minister in 1939 which is untrue, this film was an exercise in inaccuracies.
These inaccuracies I was quite prepared to forgive until I started witnessing the exact same structure of film as I would be expected to see in a comic book film. We introduce an antagonist who causes great conflict, we already know our protagonist who is a victimised target of bullies and the entire world is out to shoot him down but he must overcome great odds to beat a much more powerful enemy. We even witness the classic buddy moment where our heroes at their lowest ebb have a motivational coming together of understanding and mutual respect where their bond of friendship gives them renewed vigour and hope, and not least of all, the power to overcome their great enemy, 'The Commander'. Not to mention of course that this film even managed to chuck a twist into the mix as well. Sure, it wouldn't be a Hollywood style film without a twist now would it?
Add a couple of scenes that are so fake it'll make your head spin and you've got your film, e.g. 'his brother just happens to be on that exact boat!!??' Good grief, give me a break.
This sickened me to the core of my being. Can film makers really not appreciate that people have more intelligence than that of a wombat. I'm starting to feel like a zombie whose soul reason in life is to watch the same generic film again and again and again with the odd good film thrown in like a needle in a hundred haystacks. Originality isn't even worth speculating about anymore, it's a myth that died a death with cuchulainn.
It was such a bad ploy to create this absolute ass of a character and then have us empathise with him because the world is against him. It doesn't even try to speculate that he might bring it on himself. 'Just get the damn audience to EMPATHISE' said the director, I presume. There isn't much in the way of character here, he's an ass, played very well by Cumberbatch who can do no wrong at the moment it seems, but very one dimensional a character nonetheless, Oh yes, they try to get him to change and get along with everyone which he does, but just so we could have our great comic book buddy scene where the evil 'Commander' is put in his place until the next episode of Turing and Friends when the Commander tries to destroy the world with his next fiendish plot.
And what was with all the gay apologies at the end? I thought this film was about Enigma. I use the phrase 'about Enigma' quite quite loosely here since this film had very little resemblance to reality. But almost all the blurbs were about him being gay, and other gays and how they were mistreated. I'm sorry, was this film not about Enigma? Clearly not, they must have been afraid that people wouldn't want to see a film about a gay man? Looks that way.
So yea, I was disappointed with this, just didn't care about the main character, too much empathy mining was going on here. Not to mention the ridiculously simplistic way in which they supposedly cracked the code. But like I've said, dumbed down cinema for easy digestion.