Eleanor Reviews

Top 5 Films of the Year: ‘71 Pride The Imitation Game The Lego Movie Calvary Pleasant Surprise of the Year: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Disappointment(s) of the Year: Muppets Most Wanted Locke The Monuments Men The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

*** Having staked their claim on the treasure hidden within the Lonely Mountain, Biblo and the Dwarves, led by an increasingly volatile Thorin, watch on as armies of Men, Elves, Orcs, Goblins gather outside their front door, all vying for a piece of the gold. Sigh. I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. After the mess of the second part of the trilogy, I felt sure that Jackson would be able to redeem himself with this conclusion, but I have been proved wrong. Where to begin? Well, how about the complete lack of plot!? I have read some reviews of Mockingjay: Part 1 that accuse the film of being without direction and story, but compared to Battle of the Five Armies , Mockingjay looks like an excellently crafted Dickensian novel. In all honesty, the plot for the final Hobbit film can be summarised thus: there’s a big fight. Fight scenes can be exciting, I don’t deny it, but after you’ve seen one army smash into another, you’ve essentially seen them all, so the repetition of

***** During the Second World War, the Nazis communicated via Enigma, a seemingly impossible code that was changed every day at midnight. Desperate to break the code and win the war, the government established a top-secret programme at Bletchley Park, hiring the best cryptographers, mathematicians and analytical minds in the country. Amongst the recruits was Alan Turing, a man with as many secrets as the Nazi code… Set out over three timeframes, Tyldum’s biopic details the remarkable life of Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), from love-struck schoolboy, to cryptographer, to ‘criminal’. The majority of the tale is set during the Second World War, but perhaps the most affecting pieces are the stories of Turing’s life away from Bletchley Park and the work he did there. The performances are ubiquitously excellent, with Cumberbatch leading a pack of veterans and up-and-coming British acting talent, including relative newcomer Alex Lawther as schoolboy Turing. Charles Dance and