At the cinema: The Imitation Game
With three months to go to the BAFTAs and Oscars, we are now officially in awards season, which means a ton of prestige dramas, populated by revered actors, often telling true stories while exploring weighty themes. Sometimes the awards-bait films can end up a trifle dull, or worthy, but there’s no danger of that with The Imitation Game, a hugely compelling celebration of one of the true heroes of World War II. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, a high-functioning genius who can relate to numbers much better than he can to people. He is tasked with cracking the allegedly unbreakable Enigma cypher used by the Nazis for military communication. The against-the-clock efforts of Turing’s team make for high-stakes drama, but it’s Turing’s personal story, reflected through his time at boarding school (newcomer Alex Lawther plays the man as a teenager) and also his tragic final years, that really packs a punch. For our money, this is Benedict’s best performance so far – which is saying something. Keira Knightley also impresses as the sole woman among the Enigma codebreakers.
On DVD: X-Men: Days Of Future Past
You’ve got to hand it to those smart people who make the X-Men films. First they made the original trilogy featuring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Then they rebooted with a 1960s-era prequel starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the younger versions of Xavier and Magneto. Having tried a Wolverine spinoff, twice, they next had the cunning idea of combining all the casts in one time-bending blend. Commercially, it’s paid big dividends: Days Of Future Past is far and away the biggest-grossing X-Men movie, at least in UK cinemas. Creatively, the outcome is also pretty good, possibly because Bryan Singer returned as director. The time-travel device – Wolverine’s consciousness is beamed back into his 1973-era self – is pretty flimsy, but never mind about that. One bit you’ll want to rewind and replay: the brilliant Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who moves so rapidly that everything else is happening in slow-motion from his perspective.
On TV: Chronicle (Saturday, Channel 4, 10pm)
This summer, Dane DeHaan appeared in his first summer blockbuster, playing Harry Osborn/Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Before that, he’d won our attention with vivid contributions to films including Lawless, Kill Your Darlings and The Place Beyond The Pines. At the start of 2014, he was nominated for the annual BAFTA Rising Star Award (losing to Will Poulter in a public vote). He’s a brilliant, intense young actor from whom heat magazine expects big things. Chronicle was where we first started paying attention to him, playing one of three teen boys who come into contact with an alien substance that gives them powers of telekinesis. What starts as pranking in the mall soon spirals out of control, as events take a sinister and lethal turn. Chronicle director Josh Trank (who is not yet in his 30s) is currently working on a reboot of Fantastic Four, which releases next year. If you’ve not seen Chronicle yet, check the movie that won him that promotion to the Hollywood big league.