The Imitation Game
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: November 28, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
38
Mixed:
10
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
CineVueJoe WalshDec 23, 2014
The Imitation Game's approach is successful as entertainment but not totally satisfactory in providing greater insight into its subject. Read full review
58
HitfixGregory EllwoodAug 31, 2014
Where Imitation Game ultimately falters is in tackling Turing's later years and subsequent demise. In some ways, this period is meant to bookend the film, but instead just leaves unanswered questions while diminishing actual historical events. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 25, 2014
Ultimately, though, director Morten Tyldum’s conventional approach doesn’t do full justice to his tragically unconventional hero. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezOct 27, 2014
Given the liberties the film takes, it's surprising that it refuses to penetrate Alan Turing's carnality and allow Benedict Cumberbatch to truly wrestle with the torment of the man's sexuality. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensNov 27, 2014
Throughout The Imitation Game, there’s a sense the filmmaker is trying to shield viewers from the story’s most difficult parts — whether it’s the horrors of war, the technical complexity of the Enigma code and its solution, or the bleakness of Alan Turing’s final fate. I wish Tyldum had trusted the audience enough to let us in on the worst. It would have made his movie so much better. Read full review
60
The GuardianCatherine ShoardSep 10, 2014
What Cumberbatch delivers is an impressively rounded character study of someone variously kind, prickly, aggressive, awkward and supremely confident. But it's almost too nuanced. Accuracy isn't all, but fumbling in the dark isn't always fun. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeySep 10, 2014
The Imitation Game is a film about a human calculator which feels... a little too calculated. Read full review
60
TheWrapInkoo KangNov 27, 2014
The romance of patriotism and pain, depicted here in lush greens and velvety blues, makes “The Imitation Game” enjoyable enough to render it a vindication of the formula. It disappoints as biography, but makes for a great yarn, even if you've heard it before. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonNov 25, 2014
Tyldum has robbed his own film of emotional depth — this Turing is as simple as Morse code. Rather than a complex human portrait, this is an assemblage of triumphs, tragedies and tics. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 27, 2014
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. Those strengths make the movie worth seeing, but the writing keeps eating away at the narrative’s clarity — and integrity — until it’s impossible to separate the glib fictions from the remarkable facts. Read full review
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