'Based On' or 'Inspired By'?

The Imitation Game (2014)

8.2/10 on IMDb
89% on Rotten Tomatoes
This movie follows the story of Alan Turing, the real-life mathematician hired to crack the enigma code and thus win World War II.

First things first I'm going to put a disclaimer here. This review is going to be extremely short, and most of it will just be a rant on the one thing I hated. Feel free to skip this section if you want, but I need to get it off my chest.

So, the review:

I love Benedict Cumberbatch, I think he's an amazing actor, and his performance was great in this.

Keira Knightley I also love, so she was quite refreshing as I haven't seen her in much lately.

Charles Dance was also a welcome surprise but is it just me or did he still look and act like Tywin Lannister?

The plot was good, and all in all this movie was great and very enjoyable.

Now on to what I hated the most about it:

90% of the movie did not happen.

The movie is sold as a movie that is based on a true story. Based on. Which to me means that most of the movie will be true. Sure there's room for creative licence and different interpretations and a bit of drama thrown in, but if you're going to make 90% of the movie false, then it is no longer 'based on' a true story; it becomes 'inspired by' a true story.

I'll do the most part of this spoiler-free but later on I'll add spoiler tags so it's more in-depth.

Most of the movie focuses on the challenges that Turing faced when trying to crack this code. These challenges did not exist in real life.

The movie makes him out to be some insane hero who, after cracking the code, goes on to do even more amazing things. This did not happen in real life.

The ending was one of the few things that was true to reality. But unfortunately it was squished into the last 30 minutes and 2 pathetic sentences after the film ends. They bothered to focus so much on falsity for the first 3/4 of the movie, then they just shoe-horned in the one thing that was real (and might I add it was quite an important feature that shouldn't have been rushed). Turing and his struggles deserved much more than a rushed 30 minute segment and a few sentences after the film ends.

My problem with this is that it does no justice to Turing. He did struggle, but the filmmakers and the studio decided to create more false struggles than to focus on his real struggle.

I can't keep going on like this without spoiling the movie, so here is my non-spoiler free section:

~SPOILERS!~

1. In the film, Turing is called up to crack the code, not to build the machine. He is socially awkward and none of his fellow colleagues like him. He also has this ingenious idea of building a machine to crack the code, much to the dismay of his fellow colleagues and superiors, who do not like it and continually undermine him and question him and his machine.

In fact none of this happens. He was called specifically to build the machine, which was actually a better improved version of a previous machine someone else had tried to design (but did not really work). Let me repeat that: He was hired specifically to build that machine. He did not come up against any struggles with his superiors.

He also wasn't socially awkward as they made him out to be. He was well-liked and actually made friends with his colleagues quite easily.

2. He gets engaged to Keira Knightley's character.

This part was true.

3. He cracked the code with this great revelation of using the weather as a word that would always pop up.

I think this was false. The part in the bar where they have this great epiphany and rush to the workshop to figure it out is definitely false, but I'm fine with it as it's just for dramatic effect.

4. After cracking the code, he continually helps by working out the statistical likelihood of winning battles, so the Germans won't realise they cracked the code.

This is completely false and just wastes a lot of film time.

5. He was homosexual, had problems with society, got chemically castrated, then suicided as a result.

This is all true. But it was shoe-horned in during the last 30 minutes. Why didn't they play this out through the whole movie? It makes me so angry because it just reinforces this idea that someone's problems with his sexual orientation is not as serious a problem. Instead let's just condense it in to the last bit of the movie and write a few sentences on it.

What they could have done was just cut out most of the made-up struggles he had at the beginning of the film, play out how he solved enigma, then spent the other half of the movie focusing on how crap his life was just because he was a homosexual.

Surely that would have done more justice to him.

It's almost as if we haven't progressed anywhere in society if you're just going to neglect the fact that his homosexuality was such a huge problem. Why does this guy have to be homosexual and socially awkward and hated? Why not just show that he was great and hardly had any problems except the fact that he was homosexual? And show how he was such a great genius, but his homosexuality in the end caused him to suicide. Why not have the entire movie on that, rather than this crap about him needing to buy apples to get others to like him?

Anyway, that's the end of my rant.

In the end, it's a great film, but as far as selling it as a true story, and undermining this guy's life, it's a real disappointment.

Having said that, I would highly recommend it only if you knew it was 90% false going in.



Foxcatcher (2014)

7.2/10 on IMDb
88% on Rotten Tomatoes
Another film that was based on a true story, except this time it was actually pretty accurate.

Here we look at Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), his older brother and also Olympic Wrestler Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), and Mark's new wrestling mentor John du Pont (Steve Carell).

This film doesn't have much of a plot to it, but pretty much Mark decides to distance himself from his older brother Dave, as he attempts to break free from being under the shadow of Dave and make a name for himself. That's how Steve Carell comes in, who, might I add, is simply amazing.

Steve Carell is kind of the only reason I wanted to watch this film. I've seen interviews of the cast, and clips of the film and was just blown away by how crazy Carell was. Like, he honestly looks and acts so different to what he normally does. In fact, it's pretty hard to see that he is even Steve Carell. He looks like he could be Carell's uncle or something.

But altogether, this film was not that great. It could have been good, but it just dragged out so much. There were scenes that could have lasted one or two seconds but instead lasted about 10 seconds. There were scenes that were long but completely unnecessary (for example Channing Tatum awkwardly asking for the toilet and then a super long scene of his face whilst he is peeing).

The movie is about 2 hours and 15 minutes, but one hour in I actually thought the movie was going to end soon. In the realisation that we had over an hour left, Michael and I let out an audible groan of anguish.

The most memorable thing was the ending, which was just so random and unexpected I was very confused.

The second most memorable thing was hearing the theme of Kingsman from an adjacent cinema during a quiet scene.

In the end, the acting was great, from all three main characters, but the directing was too slow to be enjoyable.

I do not recommend this film.

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Oooh and Valentine's Day happened! (Yes, this is how far behind I am in blogging)

Unfortunately I was working during the day and Diwan during the night, so we couldn't meet up, but us girls went and had a girl's night in at Joyce's where we had curry, did random stuff and watched a movie.

What's Your Number? (2011)

6.0/10 on IMDb
23% on Rotten Tomatoes
Starring Anna Faris as a woman who's had sex with nineteen different men, the film follows her trying to track down these nineteen people as she wonders whether one of them is actually 'the one'.

Firstly, this film is actually quite long, but it was still enjoyable. I hadn't heard anything about it so I didn't have much high expectations anyway (after all, it's just a simple rom com).

It actually has a pretty good cast which I did not realise (Chris Evans, Chris Pratt) as well as a few good cameos (Joel McHale, Andy Samberg, Martin Freeman, Anthony Mackie, Aziz Ansari).

All in all, it's a decent comedy for when you're bored and don't have much to do (and Chris Evans is a handsome devil so why not?).


On the Sunday after Valentine's Day, Diwan and I went to Darling Harbour for the Valentine's Day attractions, which weren't even that great. Literally they put every single thing as an attraction even if it was just one heart hung up somewhere.

But Diwan opened my eyes to Hot Star fried chicken, which was amazingly delicious.

Unfornately I'm not that good at remembering to take photos of my food when I'm absolutely famished, so you'll just have to trust me on this: it's bigger than my face.

I couldn't finish it, but the money paid for what I got was still worth it.

They pound it super flat but for some reason it's still so moist. I don't understand how they make this perfection of a fried chicken.