Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, playing Alan Turing

Rating: 8/10 (3 January 2015)

I'd first heard of Alan Turing as the father of computer science, but I didn't know his story until a few years ago when an online petition to the UK government went viral, asking that they grant Turing a pardon and issue him an apology. And it came as no surprise when I'd found out that Hollywood had turned his work for the Allies in WWII and the subsequent years of his life into a biopic. It is quite an amazing story which deserves to be told, and The Imitation Game tells it quite entertainingly.
It also came as no surprise that they picked Benedict Cumberbatch, popular for his role as a genius detective, to play the role of Turing, a genius computer engineer. In fact, the parallels between the roles are so striking that it felt like the credits should read, "Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, playing Alan Turing." There's even one of those Sherlockian "Eureka!" moments thrown into the movie. A moment which was worked in for dramatic effect, but also came across as a bit forced and lazy.
In fact, my only big criticism of The Imitation Game is that a lot of this movie comes across as being dramatized rather than true. It seems like a lot of extra narrative was thrown into the mix, adding a lot of extra heavy-handed messages about the morality of war, women's rights, bullying, autism, etc. I'd have been nice to see a more straight-forward telling of the story.
In spite of these criticisms, there is a lot to like about The Imitation Game: Keira Knightley had a great character. The scenes of Turing's childhood hit all the right emotional notes, and Alex Lawther - an actor who'd I'd never heard of before - did a great job as Young Alan Turing. And overall it was an engaging movie with only a few slow spots here and there. And fans of the BBC's Sherlock (with Cumberbatch) will definitely enjoy it.