O Jogo da Imitação

This film's overall success hangs on Cumberbatch and what is, to date, his finest performance on the big screen.

A moving tribute to an extraordinary man.

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.

Produced with a Masterpiece Theater eye for period detail, but also with a missionary's zeal to honor a wrongly dishonored man.

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.

It would be hard to foul up the story of Alan Turing, and thankfully The Imitation Game doesn't.

"The Imitation Game" is both an education and a pleasure - and another chance to revel in what Cumberbatch can convey in eloquent silence.

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.

Cumberbatch's finely calibrated performance helps bring to life one of history's lesser-known stories and most shameful injustices.

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.

[Benedict Cumberbatch] has had a meteoric rise, and for good reason -- he's really good at what he does. Here, he does a lot with a little.

It's mostly to Cumberbatch's credit that The Imitation Game plays like a solid, engaging historical drama, interesting enough to suit audiences that aren't interested in either World War II history or technology.

Cumberbatch is the main event here, making something almost impossible (capturing such a man as Turing in a tidy two-hour package) look easy, important, and appropriately imperfect.

Cumberbatch helps elevate what could've been a rote boilerplate biopic into a film with the spark of a live wire.

The "action" here is Turing tinkering with his machine. Or simply thinking -- which, as Cumberbatch portrays it, is adventure of the highest order.

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.

This film about one of the past century's smartest humans at times treats its own audience like a classroom of remedial learners.

[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.

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.

Consider the code cracked, translated, and laid out for all to see: different is special is good, and ordinary morality is a sham, anyway.