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USD $1 ₱ 56.28 0.0000 March 27, 2024
March 26, 2024
3D Lotto 5PM
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₱ 4,500.00
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Slick but Mechanical, ‘The Imitation Game’ Wouldn’t Pass the Turing Test

The film mainly concentrates on Turing's tenure at the Bletchley radio factory, where he would build the machine that would ultimately defeat the seemingly impossible code, in spite of resistance from higher ups and his own colleagues

The Imitation Game casts Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, real life British maths professor turned codebreaker who in World War II, helped end the war and save millions of lives by deciphering the German Enigma code. The film mainly concentrates on Turing's tenure at the Bletchley radio factory, where he would build the machine that would ultimately defeat the seemingly impossible code, in spite of resistance from higher ups and his own colleagues. But the film frames the action with scenes from earlier and later in Turing's life, with flashbacks to his days as a schoolboy, and scenes of the investigation that would see Turing arrested for his homosexuality.

The film depicts Turing's reported eccentricity as a symptom of autism. It makes much of his inability to read social situations, with whole scenes devoted to his lack of a sense of humor. It's an interesting portrayal, brought cleanly to life by a showy, heavily technical performance from Cumberbatch. The actor plays up the tics, treating Turing as a Star Trek Vulcan with a hidden sense of quiet desperation. It's entertaining stuff, the film able to build both humor and drama from the character's inability to fit in.

The film also manages to make its codebreaking plot feel exciting. It smartly builds the stakes and lets the frustration set in. It seems unlikely that this is actually what happened back then, the plot largely making progress with sudden bursts of inspiration. But it's hard to deny the thrills that stem from this construction. A sequence late in the film that shows a particularly important breakthrough plays out with a terrific, nervous rhythm, even though the actual components of the scene largely consist of people fiddling with machines.

But there is a something lost in all this dramatic efficiency. The film often feels reductive, leaving little room for interpretation. There is a single line of dialogue that provides the entire thematic thesis of the film. One can't miss it, because the film makes sure that it is repeated more than once. There are no hidden layers to this picture, so much of its drama laid bare in telling conversations and overwrought narration. It leaves the film feeling a tad airless and obvious.

This obviousness doesn't make the film bad, of course. There is always an argument to be made for the merits of accessibility. But for a biography, it ends up reducing the subject. The film no longer becomes about the person, as it shapes the subject's story to fit its themes. It robs Turing of his complexity, and in certain ways, of his humanity. It further reduces the people who were around him. An able supporting cast doesn't get to do a whole lot, the secondary characters serving mainly as talking plot devices.

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Having said all that, there is still plenty to like about The Imitation Game. It is an entertaining film anchored by a magnetic lead performance. But it feels like it's mostly following a template: that of the Oscar-worthy biopic. It trims away the complications that would make a film like this more difficult and less accessible. Its main goal is to be understood and admired. The life of the subject actually falls to the wayside. The Imitation Game is slick and polished, but it pursues a conversation that wouldn't pass its subject's famous test.

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