Good but not great.

Rating: 6/10 (17 November 2014)

I saw this last Saturday and enjoyed it but I found Benedict cumberpatch's extreme emotional disconnect so extreme that it gave the entire film a flat and dull edge. The portrayal of the period was excellent and the casting was good (with a special nod to Mark Strong) but the principal performance is so tight that it seems to drain all the life from the piece. Now I realise that a certain echelon of society in these days prized the stiff upper lip but mr cumberpatch plays the buttoned down mathematical genius so devoid of anything approaching emotion that the interest drains from chunks of the film like water down a plughole. Unfortunately it's a style of performance that he is beginning to produce time and again and I begin to wonder whether he actually has much range. Three quarters of the way through I began thinking about the performance produced by 'I, Claudius' star, Derek Jacobi and wishing it was him I was watching. In the end I found this film enjoyable but dissatisfying. And as a nod to the real man, incredibly tragic.