Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Movie Review : The Imitation Game

I saw The Imitation Game! It is, similar The Theory of Everything, a biopic of a genius British man with a lovable British actor playing the lead role that gets nominated in all the awards this year. If Theory has Stephen Hawking, this one has Alan Turing, a British mathematician who is known as the father of computer science. The movie focuses on Turing's contribution in the British government's secret project during World War II. Turing and a group of code breakers must decode messages that are sent by the Germans which contain the information about their upcoming attacks to England. Turing's work helps save so many people and shorten the war, but no one knows about his heroic act because the government decides to keep it a secret. Ironically, Turing gets recognized and punished by the government for being gay, which is illegal at that time.

The movie's most memorable quote

First of all, I do NOT understand anything about the encryption and the computer science things that they talk about in this movie (hahahaha). So please don't expect me to talk about it.

The most fascinating thing about this movie for me is the main character, Alan Turing, and the way he is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. He is, like, the most human character I've ever seen in a movie. He has all the sides in human personality. He is smart, but very arrogant. He can be the most irritating person in the world, but he can be ridiculously funny as well. Sometimes he appears to be heartless, but at other times he shows that he has the capability to care so much about something, or someone. He achieves something that no one can even imagine, but he experiences painful loss too. Sometimes he looks like a robot that has no feelings, but at one moment we get to see him crying his heart out like... a human. There is one scene where Turing asks, "What am I? Am I a machine? Am I a person?". I find the questions very heartbreaking because, like I've stated, he is the most human character I've ever seen. The screenwriter writes the character very well, and Mr Cumberbatch plays it beautifully. I'm amazed.

Besides the insanely famous and talented Benedict Cumberbatch, there is a group of other actors who are really fun to watch in this movie. There is the beautiful Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, the only woman in Turing's team. The character is, like, the coolest woman. She's intelligent, very determined, sensitive, kind and, of course, breathtakingly beautiful (Keira always looks beautiful in 1940s make up and costume, doesn't she?). And then there is Matthew Goode as Hugh Alexander, who is very charming and smart (I love guys who is smart and charming haha). I enjoy watching Allen Leech as John too. There is a shocking thing about John that is revealed near the end of the movie and it really shocks me because he is always very likable throughout the movie.

I tend to forget mentioning this aspect in my reviews but I don't forget this time, the score of this movie is so beautiful! It is composed by the famous composer Alexandre Desplat, who also worked on my other favorite films such as Harry Potter and Benjamin Button. I also love the costumes and the sets of the movie. This movie is so good for your eyes to see.

Lastly, I think the story that this movie delivers is still relevant in our era. In this era, we can still see people get discriminated and even punished for being gay, for being fat, for having a skin color that is different from other people, for choosing a certain religion and for doing other little, personal things. We can still see how people's extraordinary talents and great achievements get completely ignored while the little, personal things about them get judged. This movie can make us think again about how we treat other people.

To conclude, The Imitation Game is remarkable. The message, the performances, the story and the characters are crafted so beautifully and carefully, which creates something very powerful.

Rating : 4/5

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