The Imitation Game

Ratings: 8.6/10
Film Class: B
Genre: Suspense Drama (Biography)

Alan Turing, a gifted mathematician who during the 2nd World War helped break a seemingly impossible German code pattern used to relay secret messages within their own military daily. The codes were generated by a machine called Enigma, which would create secret messages in a form of cryptograms but what made it so difficult was that the "key" to solving the messages would change everyday. There's a good 158 million million million different combinations to solve Enigma, and Alan's team's only given less than 24 hrs each day to solve it before all their efforts for that particular day would have been wasted. That's the cool part, explained effectively briefly at the start of the film. 

The Imitation Game is a fast paced movie which puts my mind on the edge of my brain (say what?!). It wasted no time in relationship build ups, though there were flashbacks now and then, the focus still remained largely on the EQ-lacking (and as a result there were several awkwardly funny scenes) genius mathematician trying to break the codes. Not having prior knowledge on who Alan Turing was, I was slapped by 2 major plot twists in the movie, one was about his personal life, the other was about his achievement in today's modern world. These I shall not disclose here but I do urge you to not google/wiki them if you haven't the slightest clue so at least there's a few more punches this movie can throw at you to make it even more unpredictably impressive.

*major spoilers ahead* I thought the way they managed to break the code was ingenious, though simple, it was something most of us would have overlooked. It wasn't a stunning discovery, but more of a Eureka, "Why didn't I think of that!" moment. The relationship between Alan Turing and his fiancée suffered slight "gappy" blows to the plot progression because there you have a touching scene of Alan's confession to her about his personal secret but reciprocated by magnanimity of a different kind of love from her, the next scene showed that they were no longer together. 

There were many eye-gaping quotes and though one of them was said a whooping 3 times throughout the movie, the incoherence of it and the tongue-twisting words used downplayed it a little. Still, it makes for a good "aw"-sifying quote, "Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."

It's not perfect, but it's beautiful. Sad, and heartfelt. Complex, yet enigmatically simple.

The Theory of Everything

Ratings: 7.4/10

Film class: B

Genre: Drama (Biography)

The life story of Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane Hawking. From their days of courtship to marriage, and till present, The Theory of Everything triumphs in portraying their relationship but fails in addressing the theory of everything. Well, that's the only disgruntlement I have of this well acted melodrama of the rise and fall of our legendary physicist. 

The movie portrays him more of a cosmologist than a physicist (I thought he was more of a physicist, did read up several of his theories back during my younger days), but as for his relationship with his wife, I was totally clueless until this movie came along. It shed light on one of our few remaining geniuses still alive, his fame consistently radiating through guest TV appearances like The Big Bang Theory etc. He suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neuron disease which paralyses his entire body except his mind, and despite doctors' diagnosis of his life span of 2 years, he has long outlived his supposed life expectancy. Not sure if he's still actively constructing theories with his beautiful mind, but this movie wasn't so much that of his genius, but more of his love story with Jane Hawking, his "prime days" before his condition impaired him. 

There were many eye-souring scenes, and the multiple blows of sadness is sure to break even the toughest of men. I thought Jane Hawking and him weren't the best of pairs, one a devote believer of religion, the other, a scientist sceptic of even the existence of God. It's a perfect example of opposites attract, and I hope that one fine day some genius scientist will be able to prove that... Not physically as in magnets, but emotionally and who knows spiritually (if the concept of spiritually even does exist and not just merely a figure of speech). 

Their acting prowess (the 2 leads of course) is the main contributor to the success of this film, while it's not blockbuster material, it sure is a memorable indie film. 

*major spoilers alert* In case anyone picked up on the "wife" part, I had intentionally changed it to protect the outcome of the movie, but to be accurate, factually, it should be "ex-wife". 

Taken 3

Ratings: 6.0/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Action Thriller

Shaky camera work, shallow plot and mediocre fight scenes. One of Forest Whitaker's worst performances, and something major was lacking - coolness. Liam Neeson wasn't as kickass this time round, and because of the forced twist in the story (which was pretty obvious), it made his role less cool, less invincible. To top it, the showdown with one of the major villains felt like a Hollywood version of Ultraman. There you see Liam Neeson being "owned" big time... and just when he was about to get killed, somehow he gained full life and owned the s*** out of the villain, like some computer game character. Boooooooo...

Needless to say, I was utterly disappointed. Liam Neeson had a team of his old pals to help him out, which again negated the expectations of Taken fans. Though his team consisted of a couple of likeable characters, isn't the Taken franchise supposed to be about a super-cool lone ranger taking out a whole syndicate of bad guys, single-handedly (I reiterate)?

I do hope that as the tagline goes, "It ends here". Because I would have hated to see the fall of such a great franchise. 

Liam Neeson is once again caught up in an against-all-odds-situation when he's framed for the murder of his wife. Afraid that his daughter would be harmed, he goes all out to uncover the conspiracy behind the murder, and to exact revenge, Taken-style. Instead of just "hunting", this time he's also hunted by the FBI - a love triangle gone bad. 

I realised the script whereby he said "Good Luck" to Forest Whitaker over the phone, as seen in the trailer, was cut short in the actual movie. It wasn't as what was shown in the trailer, a seemingly trivial, but critical point. That whole chunk load of dialogue was supposed to be the essence of Taken, and yet in the movie, it's importance was downplayed massively. 

Even though there wasn't a particular scene that was memorable, I would still have given it a go for completion sake, since I'm a self-proclaimed Taken fan. It was bad, but thankfully not bad enough.