If you've never heard of Alan Turing, this is the film for you

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2017)

Version I saw: UK cinema release
Actors: 7/10
Plot/script: 7/10
Photography/visual style: 7/10
Music/score: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
I came into 'The Imitation Game' knowing quite a bit about Alan Turing. He comes into conversations about science, mathematics, history and civil rights. I had seen the 1996 BBC drama 'Breaking the Code' starring Derek Jacobi, as had Benedict Cumberbatch, who has said in interviews that Jacobi's performance of the role influenced his own. For this version though, the focus is more on the effects of Turing's autism on his life than of his speech impediment.
This is Cumberbatch's forte: characters who are right all the time, about everything, but communicate poorly. He's got the charisma to be likable even while behaving (on the face of it) badly toward people. In fact, he heads a cast featuring Mark Strong, Keira Knightley and Charles Dance, all doing the exact types of performances at which they excel.
Turning this kind of story into a drama faces an obstacle that doing maths and breaking codes in rooms is not inherently cinematic, but the screenplay does a good job of getting around this by various means. Graham Moore's script is excellent in many regards. Also, I would like to point out some great location scouting and set dressing.
My only hesitation is that... Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think The Imitation Game adds much to the knowledge of even a fairly educated layman. There's very little new information here, and some questions I had remained unanswered. It covers the basics in an engaging, dramatic, insightful way, but if you are coming to this to expand your knowledge of Turing, you might want to look elsewhere instead.