The Imitation Game 2014

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: This film's overall success hangs on Cumberbatch and what is, to date, his finest performance on the big screen. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: The movie has a tiresome sense of old-fashioned propriety. Not only can you catch the whiff of mothballs, you can also smell the ersatz good taste. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Thoroughly engrossing Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: It's a sad and heartbreaking story that keeps you nailed to the screen for its entire 114-minute running time. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's a marvelous story about science and humanity, plus a great performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, plus first-rate filmmaking and cinematography, minus a script that muddles its source material to the point of betraying it. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "The Imitation Game" is both an education and a pleasure - and another chance to revel in what Cumberbatch can convey in eloquent silence. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The "action" here is Turing tinkering with his machine. Or simply thinking -- which, as Cumberbatch portrays it, is adventure of the highest order. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: The movie is undeniably strong in its sense of a bright light burned out too soon, and the often undignified fate of those who dare to chafe at society's established norms. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Streamlines a fascinating true story into functional prestige filmmaking, but it's still plenty engaging, thanks largely to its lead. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: The Imitation Game is at its best when it focuses on the collision between cryptography and proto-programming. The film's efforts to function as a character study, on the other hand, are decidedly clumsy. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Cumberbatch nails it. If only the film did, too. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: There's a film to be made about how government secrecy came spiraling out from Bletchley to conquer the future in which we now live, but "The Imitation Game" would rather give you a very good night at the movies. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This watchable biopic focuses on the Enigma project, mining drama from the gravity of the Nazi threat and laughs from the egghead hero's arch egotism and social ineptitude. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The actors save the day. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Cumberbatch deserved a stronger movie, but at least Tyldum had the good sense to let him loose. Few actors can portray intelligence in a way that honors the audience's own. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It would be hard to foul up the story of Alan Turing, and thankfully The Imitation Game doesn't. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: [Cumberbatch's] whose portrayal of the British mathematician and WWII code-smasher is a feat of nuanced intelligence, a portrait of anguish with hints of arid humor. And, yes, arrogance. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It's a film about drive, about imagination, and how brilliance thrives outside the mainstream. These are common enough themes given uncommon purchase in a film about a man who likely saved millions of lives by never fitting in. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Turing may finally be getting what he deserves as the straightforward and well-acted The Imitation Game, featuring a strong performance from Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: The film is anchored by yet another hypnotically complex Cumberbatch performance. He's turning greatness into a habit. Read more

James Rocchi, Film.com: Strong, stirring, triumphant and tragic, The Imitation Game may be about a man who changed the world, but it's also about the world that destroyed a man. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Engrossing, nicely textured and sadly tragic ... Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Good as he's been in the past ... the richness and complexity of Turing's character make this portrayal of an arrogant, difficult, sure-of-himself individual the role of Cumberbatch's career. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Turing is kept tweedy and neutered, as closeted in celluloid as he was in real life. Read more

Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: There's truth to it. Turing's story is indeed hard to imagine. Thanks to Cumberbatch's committed performance, a lot more people will know it. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Unlike The King's Speech, which won a clutch of Oscars for its dull propriety and Masterpiece Theater vibe, The Imitation Game is vibrant and lively, engaging you on several levels. Read more

Elaine Teng, The New Republic: We go into a movie knowing that the subject was as genius or a hero, a martyr or titan. We should leave with a more nuanced understanding of who he was, his complexities and flaws. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Cumberbatch's finely calibrated performance helps bring to life one of history's lesser-known stories and most shameful injustices. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Turing will survive this film with his enigma intact, but the movie itself is the opposite of enigmatic, and Cumberbatch merits more. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It never quite brings everything together into a dramatic whole. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: There's an algorithm for making an Oscar-ready prestige picture - and "The Imitation Game" follows it obsessively. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: "The Imitation Game" is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Produced with a Masterpiece Theater eye for period detail, but also with a missionary's zeal to honor a wrongly dishonored man. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's easy to see The Imitation Game as a triumph - after all, Turing accomplished what all the experts claimed was impossible - but it's equally apparent that underlying the triumph is a tragedy. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: The film's prime force is Cumberbatch, a great actor whose talent shines here on its highest beams. It's an explosive, emotionally complex performance. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: As middlebrow, medium-impact melodrama goes, you could do worse. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "The Imitation Game" translates Turing and his team's achievement for a lay audience, while dramatizing the personal, scientific and bureaucratic obstacles they faced. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: This film about one of the past century's smartest humans at times treats its own audience like a classroom of remedial learners. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: While their careers include fine performances, Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley are so ambitious, so subtle and so intelligent as the protagonists of "The Imitation Game" that their earlier work feels light. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Cumberbatch is moviedom's man of the moment, and with this painfully human performance, the actor who has specialized in difficult geniuses finally cracks the code of compassion. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail: As uncomplicatedly likeable and effortlessly rootable as its main character and star, The Imitation Game ultimately wins at any easy game, when it could have risked - and revealed - so much more. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: A handsome and stirring film of Second World War ingenuity that also succeeds as cracking good entertainment. Read more

Inkoo Kang, TheWrap: "As fine-tuned and moving a performance as Cumberbatch delivers - all the more impressive for being created from scratch, since no audio or video recordings of Turing exist - the film's Turing suffers an acute lack of an inner life." Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Hidden codes, secret meanings and mixed messages pulse through the reliable, old-fashioned, buzzing copper wires of this true-life British period drama. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Based on the biography by Andrew Hodges, Imitation illuminates Turing's brilliance in an engrossing and moving film that features a standout, Oscar-worthy performance by Benedict Cumberbatch. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Cumberbatch is the one freaky touch in an otherwise conventional movie, but the conventions in this case work handsomely. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: "The Imitation Game" leaves Turing's essential mysteries intact, but they will nonetheless find even the most public contours his story ripe with drama, excitement and deeply affecting resonance. Read more