Customer Reviews
Parody - By: M.I., 11 Jul 2008 
If this is the version I've seen, it must be the most coy rendering of actual events I've seen. It's well known that the most significant figure in the Bletchley/Enigma project was Alan Turing. Yet I don't remember that he was ever mentioned in this film. Instead, a sweet romance was shoehorned in. Turing, we should understand, was homosexual - & was made to suffer for it, to the point of suicide. He was never honoured in his lifetime, or even until very recently, largely for that reason. This version is truly Hamlet without the prince. Come on, directors, we're alll grown up now.
Good film, rubbish release. - By: RobW, 06 Jul 2008 
This is a very good film, & I feel that the review "An Enigmatic film experience" posted in 2002 gives a suitable resume of the movie itself.
This review is primarily a warning to mention that the writer of that review is referring to the original DVD release of the film, which had lots of special features & was in the correct cinema aspect ratio (2.35:1) & which on Amazon, at least, is currently unavailable.
The item on sale at the moment is a re-released version, which is inexplicably much poorer than the original. It appears to be a rather hashed together DVD in every respect, with the film itself shown in a shockingly bad print in a cropped aspect ratio (1.78:1), which noticably damages director Michael Apted's framing at crucial points with very distracting pan-and-scanning. The DVD also has no extras at alll.
I have thus given this release three stars because despite it being an enjoyable film, the DVD is rubbish. Let's hope the studio will think again & re-release their original DVD print.
Film ****
DVD *
Possibly the dullest film I've ever seen! - By: Rickvanman, 18 Jan 2008 
Ever watched a film & kept thinking "it'll get better in a minute"?
This film has had some reallly good reviews on Amazon, but I'm clearly missing something, because I can't see why. Maybe it's just not my cuppa tea, but I could only bear 40 minutes of Enigma before I turned it off due to utter boredom. I found it as dull as ditchwater.
Enjoyable intelligencer - By: Lou Knee, 12 Aug 2007 
Good to see old fashioned values of plot, friction, a smalll love interest, & a proper climax come to the fore in this this quietly drawn thriller. Winslet confirms she is not just nice to look at, but a real actor, & British through & through. I don't know the factual validity of the material, but do know it makes for a damned fine film. Give 'em alll a drop of Scotch in their tea cups.
Worth watching but don't think this is the real story - By: J. Parker, 04 Aug 2007 I was so looking forward to this film as I have for many years been fascinated by the story of Bletchley Park. I also love Robert Harris' novel "Enigma" on which this film is partly based.
I was disappointed because I have read something of the backgound & found the short cuts taken for the purposes of the screenplay very clumsy, for example the explanation about why the U-boat codes couldn't be read & taking an Enigma machine away, just misrepresented the technicalities & the real drama & difficulty of what people were doing.
If I hadn't known what the story of code-breaking was reallly about, I would have reallly enjoyed this film & there is a lot to like. Kate Winslet is well-cast & is good in the role of Hester. Jeremy Northam is wonderfully chilling. Dougray Scott uses a strange array of accents but is endearing. There is one scene which captures the tension, when the codebreakers spend the night trying to reconstruct their "crib" in order to break the code & that is very well done. The whole film is well made, I think.
So, in summary, this an odd adaptation of a book which itself tries to tell a true story by means of fiction. It's alll a bit techie so that was always going to be difficult.
Watch it as a latter-day John Buchan story. It's a fun film.
