Perhaps this is one of the most surprising films of 2014,
because it has left me a great disappointment. I heard of the name of Alan
Turing the first time around 5 years ago when reading a book named The Code
Book by Simon Singh. This book dedicates a whole chapter to a encrypting
machine called Enigma, including some of achievements of breaking down it done
by Polish decryption experts in the period just prior to WWII, and achievements
from the legendary Bletchley Park in Britain during WWII. Alan Turing is the
most prominent figure at that time, no doubt. I also learnt about Turing
afterward, and has taken some liking to him since then, a short-lived genius.
And Turing in The Imitation Game is quite different. It’s a
Turing who is dramatized terribly in a movie which is dramatized even more. To
the extent of phoniness. Turing (the character in the movie) is described as a
super-hero who engages in the most intellectually quintessential place of
Britain at that time. Ignore the fact that the movie depicts Turing mistakenly
and exaggeratedly, just mention the logic behind the plot. The story of Turing
(the character) and his partners’ achievements is similar to a tale of being
hinted by some god in a summer night. So right in the beginning Turing (the
character) rushes into sketching a machine which would be used to break down
the Enigma, while during the movie progress there are no suggestions for us to
know what is based upon or who he is inherited from in order to create that
machine. There is only a mention of Polish in an early scene in the movie as
smugglers who slipped the Enigma machine into Britain. And afterward, Turing
(the character) and his partners act as God, just do it and achieve it.
The movie is overstated and inflated dramatically from the
plot to dialogues, which easily arouse viewers’ emotion, as a line in the movie
spoken by Turing (the character), “it’s because it feels good”. But for me,
also copying another line right after (spoken by Turing the character too):
sometimes I can't enjoy what supposedly feels good, I have to think what is
logical, which really and truly feels good.
About a mathematics genius, an alleged father of computer
science and artificial intelligence, the movie just delivers some hollow
feelings. Alan Turing, I would meet you only through words and books.