Enigma

Rating:
Summary: Enigma- Great Movie, Great Acting!
Review: I saw this movie in the theater first and loved it and had to buy it on DVD. It is such a good story and the actors are great. Especially Dougray Scott, Jeremy Northam, and Kate Winslet!!

Rating:
Summary: Beware the video quality of this DVD
Review: Anyone interesting in buying this film on DVD, beware that the quality is absolutely atrocious. It's so bad, I found it unwatchable, so my comment is not about the film per se, but the DVD. When I first started to play the DVD I thought I must have received a defective DVD, but upon searching the internet for DVD reviews of ENIGMA I found that the transfer is atrocious. It appears to have been transferred to DVD from a PAL format VHS tape. The picture is fuzzy, it shimmers, and small detail is just awful. The first 5 minutes started to give me eye strain so I had to stop watching.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Perhaps if I'd seen the movie without reading the book I may have found something to like in it. As it was, I had read and enjoyed the novel by Harris, so I expected the movie to match the vivid imagery of the book. I suppose Cinema 101 teaches novices that a movie should not try and mimic the printed word. But it behooves a director to immerse himself or herself in the mind of the writer, especially if the poor ... is a decent one like Harris.

All the elements that Harris skilfully employs in his story - the cold, the grime, the fatigue, the hunger, the revolting food (whale meat!) and the utter poverty of a war-torn country - these are totally absent in the movie. Everyone is fresh as a dewdrop, wears spotless clothes straight out of the laundry, and goes about in bright sunshine. In fact the movie starts out on the wrong foot - pigeons in London on a bright sunny day. Now I'm sure the sun shines a fair bit on merry England, but what a poor comparison next to Harris writing about a blacked-out Cambridge in the winter of 1940. I gave up after a half hour of hoping things'd improve.

The parallel with Forsyth's "Day of the Jackal" is apt, where the movie just could not deliver the grip of the written word. On the other hand, another movie with a similar plot - "In the Line of Fire" was absolutely top-notch. Perhaps it is that movies made from good books can never satisfy the readers. Overall, I'd say buy the paperback instead and don't look back.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, yet something missing...
Review: A young mathematical genius, Tom Jericho, is returning to the British code-breaking center during World War II after he has been sent away due to personal problems. They are now trying to crack the new code that the Nazis use when they communicate with their U-boats, since it seems like the Nazi's are now trying to attack convoys coming from the US with food, ammunition, and other equipment. The British Intelligence Service is very suspicious of how the Nazi;s knew that they had cracked the former code and they begin to scrutinize Tom's past. Enigma can be described as a cat and mouse game that has a soul, but lacks flesh.

Rating:
Summary: Hackneyed; mostly limps at a snail's pace.
Review: "The thinking man's thriller"? I failed to see this -- either I'm not a "thinking man", or the phrase is hogwash, for all I see in Enigma is a slow-moving, pretentious, loquacious film with very few thrilling moments and an interesting backdrop that's rendered limp by bad direction and pacing.

First let me get the good points over with. Dougray Scott, who was simply impotent as the lovesick schoolboy villain of M:I-2, fares much better here as master codebreaker Tom Jericho. This role requires much less charm and power , and Scott's strange face and nasal voice generally work well to convey the character's zipped-up manners. The Tom Stoppard script, however, is an exercise in triviality. The backdrop of the Enigma machine and "Shark" code is infinitely fascinating, but Stoppard put it into the context of a cliched and vaguely developed romantic liaison which rings false and generates little emotional response. The infallible Saffron Burrows, as Claire, does well and oozes intelligence and sensuality as usual, but the script really gives her little room to move. Director Michael Apted's attention-deficit editing renders the vital central relationship between Jericho and Claire unsympathetic by neglect; the legions of poorly paced flashbacks simply distract from the emotional thrust of the characters, and the one scene between Jericho and Claire that's supposed to move us -- the bedroom scene where she tries to take his notes -- rings completely false. So despite the best efforts of Scott and Burrows, Kate Winslet sashays in with a solid turn, downplaying her looks to play the mopey Hester with dogged charm and enough spunk to win us over.

Apted, who had shown his incompetent hand with Nell (one of Jodie Foster's most villified films) and The World Is Not Enough (the worst James Bond film since the mid-'80s), once again deserves most of the blame. The aforementioned flashback madness is one thing; Apted also has a tendency to fall in love with establishing shots, and to let scenes slow to a crawl. The excruciating first scene between Scott and Jeremy Northam (with the worst performance I've ever seen him gives) is simply unbearable. Enigma has one of the worst car chases I've ever seen in a film, and most of the plot strands are so badly mashed together than the series of "memory" setups near the end is too little, too late. The film didn't keep me on board with the chain of detective work and plot developments, so the ending is a bust, especially its conclusions as to Claire's character. In order for the ending to make sense, Claire should have been set up as the true enigma to begin with -- and Saffron Burrows would have been more than up to the task of dominating the story. Instead, she's given so little time that we're never invited to ask who she really is, what she's like. So when she suddenly gains importance in the 11th hour, I simply shrugged it off.

Enigma, to me, is too jealous of giving away vital information necessary for the audience to understand, rejoice in, and further explore its story developments. And given the quality of the cast and the freshness of the topic, its failure is all the more deplorable.

Rating:
Summary: It's an enigma, alright.
Review: Ok-here's the plot--a crack codebreaker, Tom Jericho, returns from a mental breakdown and breaks the Enigma code as German U-boats surround an important supply convey during WWII.

Here's the sub-plot-- Tom Jericho had the nervous breakdown due to the capricious "love-'em--and-leave-'em" floozy Clare (who dumped him). Clare has now disappeared. She may or may not be a spy/traitor. One might expect--nay, hope--that Tom sensibly doesn't care about Clare's fate, but not our lad--he eagerly embraces the hunt for Clare in spite of the fact that this throws suspicion on him. Oh and by the way, he is, after all, SUPPOSED to be concentrating on cracking the German code (and has a mere 4 days to do it in!). The viewer is expected to believe that Tom juggles the mystery of the whereabouts of the missing Clare while simultaneously cracking the code that is the crucial element in the outcome of the war!

This silly sub-plot degenerates into absurdity when we are supposed to swallow the idea that Tom actually pinches the Enigma machine from a military camp and careens across the countryside with it with a pleasantly plump Kate Winslet in tow.

I found myself protesting to the television at numerous points during this DVD. The sub-plot dominated the entire film. Wasn't the Enigma story exciting enough without adding spies who drop their knickers for their king and country upon command? How on earth are we supposed to believe that Tom, who is followed by the WWII version of James Bond, manages to "slip" the Enigma machine out of a secure area right under everyone's noses? The film was just full of these ridiculous, implausible moments.

This film was a terrible disappointment. What a load of old codswallop.

Rating:
Summary: Enigmatic Urban Legend
Review: I am not sure why people like this movie so much. It is a bit confusing as there are actually two separate plot lines going on at the same time. The actors and actresses try hard and do very well, but the characterizations are unreal. It is hard to imagine the mathematicians at Benchely Park could be so down-to-earth and humane as portrayed in the movie. I suppose there are shades of Alan Turing in Tom Jericho's character, but it is rather difficult to envision a mathematician being an action hero. The handling of codebreaking is a lot better than "A Beautiful Mind", though.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the book
Review: The movie was released here in the US on limited release (couldn't find it in the SE at all), and so I read the book last summer. Rarely have I found a movie that even matches the book, but this screenplay was so artfully edited from the book that I feel it actually is *better* than the book. And how many of us have seen the old enigma machines??? <G> Taut, well written, excellent acting, very British - buy it! I don't think you'll be disappointed at all.

Rating:
Summary: Beware older DVD players
Review: I heard great things about this movie, but our DVD player won't read the disc (we have a Toshiba 2109 which is 3 years old). I have heard that upgrades of DVD players are sometimes needed, but it's hardly worth the expense. We watch a lot of movies, and this is the first disc we've used that seems to be incompatible with our player. (we tried 2 copies of this movie to be certain it wasn't just 1 bad disc)

Rating:
Summary: An uncommonly fine film
Review: In retrospect, seeing in films such as this most recent superb ENIGMA all the sophistication of intelligence devices, communication scramblers, and networking of spies and counterspies used by the Germans in WWII, it is rather amazing that they lost the war. But then as this fine story reveals, the English were equally adept at decoding and undermining the German efforts. War is ugly and futile, but the mechinations that oil the brutal machine are morbidly fascinating. ENIGMA, in a fine script by Tom Stoppard and sensitively made visual by director Michael Apted, explains these complex phenomena adroitly. The movie is visually stunning, moving from the intricacies of the Intelligence machinery behind closed doors to the misty, wistful English countryside. It would be difficult to imagine a finer cast for these roles than Dougray Scott, Jeremy Northam, Kate Winslet, and Saffron Burrows. For an 'old-fashioned thriller' based on an intelligent, literate script rather than on the usual fire and explosions, treat yourself to this little gem.