Comment on Review: Cumberbatch shines as wartime codebreaker

'Tis clearly the season for Oscar-worthy performances by British actors playing mathematical geniuses facing daunting personal odds. Consider: A few weeks ago we had "The Theory of Everything," starring Eddie Redmayne as the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking. [...] we have Benedict Cumberbatch in "The Imitation Game" as Alan Turing, the man chiefly responsible for cracking the vaunted Enigma code used by the Germans in World War II. [...] even though Turing literally changed the course of history — Winston Churchill said he'd made the greatest single contribution to the Allied victory — and, by the way, ALSO created one of the first modern computers, you may well have never heard of him. [...] though it often feels like your basic high-brow British biopic, the film also happens to boast impeccable acting, especially by Cumberbatch, who masterfully captures the jittery, nervy brilliance of a man whose mind could bring down an enemy yet couldn't process simple human interactions. Soon we flash back to 1939, and younger Turing's job interview with the commander running the secret codebreaking program (a nicely crusty Charles Dance). The Imitation Game," a Weinstein Company release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking.