Saturday, February 21, 2015

"The Imitation Game"



Take a look @ 'the good, the bad and the ugly' in "The Imitation Game" starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley:


Michael Stevens/SneakPeek.Ca for 'THE GOOD':


"...'The Imitation Game' is a fast-paced thriller based on a true story, starring actor Benedict Cumberbatch in a sympathetic (sometimes pitiful) turn as English mathematician 'Alan Turing', whose calculated efforts at breaking the 'Third Reich's 'enigma' code, turned the tide for the Allies in WWII.


"Mark Strong is a reassuring presence as 'Stewart Menzies', the sly head of 'MI6'.



"Charles Dance is suitably crusty as battle-worn, cynical 'Commander Denniston'.



"Keira Knightley as math whiz 'Joan Clarke' does her job as a 'feminist' romantic interest for Turing (?!) and is pleasing (as usual) to look at..."

Graf Orlok for 'THE BAD': 


"Michael, I agree that Keira Knightley does get some nice close-ups of her pouty lips, crooked teeth and pancaked skin. And I love it all ! But its her burning coal-brown eyes, mixed with those sudden, emotional mood changes, that got me all hot and bothered. 



"I also enjoyed the look of the cheeky single gals of that era, with their tight silk tops, ruby-red lipstick, politically incorrect cigarette smoking and giggly pint-guzzling.


"As for all the slobbering from blushing, teary-eyed  Cumberbatch as Turing, fer' gosh sakes, he comes off as a really sick puppy and yet we never do get to see any of the 'deviant sex' he was accused of, aside from some extreme close-ups of various fluids coming out of his nose..."


Jane Doberman for 'THE UGLY':



"Never mind all that Freudian (?!) stuff Graf, what really irked me about this stiff upper lip Brit 'bio-pic', was that although the real man at the center of the story was a pioneering computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and mathematical biologist, what we get is Benedict Cumberbatch as a tweedy nutty professor, with an arrogant smart-mouth along the lines of 'Sheldon Cooper' from the 'Big Bang Theory'.


"Then to tarnish the real Turing's accomplishments, even worse than what the law accused him of at the time, the writers smear him with a fictionalized, treasonous plot device presenting the man as a snivelling coward who gives into Soviet blackmail, forever branding this war-time hero as a war-time traitor.


"But I can't fault the work of Cumberbatch, with his expressive pigeon eyes, making do with the conventional, 'Boy's Own' cookie-cutter script material he's forced to work with here.


"Note To Marvel Studios: Please do not make Cumberbatch's 'Doctor Strange' cry..."


Click the images to enlarge...