'The Imitation Game' trailer shows brilliant portrayal of Alan Turing

In World War 2, the Germans had a code that was believed to be unbreakable. The Enigma Code was one that saw Allied forces driving themselves up the wall to break, and proved widely successful for much of Germany's campaign. A new movie sheds a light on the man who broke the code in Alan Turing.

Turing was a mathematician and philosopher, and formalized many concepts used for computer science. In creating the Bombe machine which looked for algorithmic similarities in the German Enigma code, Winston Churchill called Turing's contribution the greatest contribution to the Allied victory against Nazi Germany.

Turing was also a man with is own closely guarded secrets, which the movie seeks to shed light on. A gay man in a time when homosexual activities were illegal in England, Turing wrestled with his own emotions while shouldering the burden of cracking the Enigma.

Cumberbatch plays a brash character who is as private as he is callous. His representation of Turing is shockingly natural, but we shouldn't be surprised by that; Cumberbatch is a master of mimicry, and coupled with his studious research of Turing — this is likely as accurate a representation as we'll see.

The firs trailer for The Imitation Game is below, with a theatrical release date of November 21. If the officer who proves subversive to Turing's activities looks familiar, it's because he is. Like his previous role of Tywin Lannister, Charles Dance proves a worthy adversarial thorn in the side of our hero.

[timleine]