IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Jellybeansucker Period WW2 geekfest movie shot with admirable British restraint. Well cast and fairly well scripted, if a little complex, but very well acted fictional thriller based on the Nazi code messaging system for its frighteningly deadly unter seaboot corps in its North Atlantic theatre destroying Allied supply ship convoys, principally en route to bulk up the soviet Union's resistance against the might of the of the German Panzer Corps, Wermacht front line infantry, Waffen SS and winter trained mountain corps. If you want to see them all in action then don't watch this film but other action based war movies with them in.This isn't an action war movie, the closest it gets to it is a wound up maths geek biffing his boss on the chin. This is like a pure strategy console game, a long puzzle giving us piece upon piece to solve. It's not fabulously handled by the writer-director partnership in this regard, but the drama certainly is. This is a complex strategic mystery thriller made by straight drama experts rather than complex spy thriller experts but nonetheless I love it, because they get the feel of it spot on and get exceptional performances out of Winslet in particular as a believable female nerd, and Northam as the flamboyant posh police inspector in charge of the high level case.Has a great old fashioned atmosphere helped along with a superbly chosen score of contemporary swing music and Mendlesson, very classy! Highly recommended for a rare geek's look at the non combat roles played in the real war against the dense grain of the overwhelmingly action movie infested WW2 canon.

adcore-38674 German military messages enciphered on the Enigma machine were first broken by the Polish Cipher Bureau, beginning in December 1932. This success was a result of efforts by three Polish cryptologist's, Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, working for Polish military intelligence. Rejewski reverse-engineered the device, using theoretical mathematics and material supplied by French military intelligence. Subsequently the three mathematicians designed mechanical devices for breaking Enigma ciphers, including the cryptologic bomb. From 1938 onwards, additional complexity was repeatedly added to the Enigma machines, making decryption more difficult and requiring further equipment and personnel—more than the Poles could readily produce.On 26 and 27 July 1939,[3] in Pyry near Warsaw, the Poles initiated French and British military intelligence representatives into their Enigma-decryption techniques and equipment, including Zygalski sheets and the cryptologic bomb, and promised each delegation a Polish-reconstructed Enigma. The demonstration represented a vital basis for the later British continuation and effort.[4] During the war, British cryptologists decrypted a vast number of messages enciphered on Enigma. The intelligence gleaned from this source, codenamed "Ultra" by the British, was a substantial aid to the Allied war effort.Marian Rejewski was responsible for the initial analysis that enabled exploitation of the German ENIGMA cryptographic machine. Without his breakthroughs, which he provided to the French and British in 1939, the U.K. and U.S. may have never been able to exploit ENIGMA. Mr. Rejewski's genius was that he recognized traditional attacks as useless against ENIGMA. He became the first to employ a higher-algebraic attack against any cryptographic system. His insight produced a solution that had evaded his French and British peers for a decade, and thanks to his contributions, ENIGMA-derived intelligence enabled U.S. and British efforts to defeat Germany.

Jonas1969 Enigma is not for the war buffs who want historical accuracy. Although the historical setting at the headquarters for code breaking during world war 2 is solid enough the characters we meet are fictional.The main character Thomas Jericho clearly has some connections to Alan Turing, but the differences are equally apparent to those who know the historical accounts, so anyone searching for a story about Turing should look elsewhere.If you can let go of this there is a good spy story to be had. Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows and Dougray Scott are all excellent in the leading roles, but the supporting cast is equally good. Jeremy Northam's spy master is one of many highly entertaining portrayals.The intertwined stories along the way are perhaps more captivating than the main plot, but the ride we are taken on is well worth it.

pingshar Take that, U-571! Oh, the irony! "Enigma" was made as a British counter to the supposed historical inaccuracies of the American "U-571," and what happens? The Poles are in a lather at the Brits for historical inaccuracies.Look, you twits, they are both fictional! That means they are not supposed to be historically accurate. And no viewer with half a brain would think any the worse of the Poles based on this movie, because it is FICTION.How do we know it is fiction? Because there were no such persons as Thomas Jericho, Puck, et al. Some of them were based on real people, they say: Hester Wallace on Mavis Batey, who died at 92 this month (and the reason I watched this). However, the real Batey seems to have played a far more key role in breaking Enigma than portrayed. (The movie never makes clear what exactly she does (after all it's secret) or how she has time to go gallivanting around the countryside.)On the other hand, when you make a movie saying a Polish traitor and spy almost cost the war for the Allies, you shouldn't be surprised that Poles might be a bit miffed at you, even if you do give credit to Poland in the beginning of the movie for providing England with an enigma machine, and instructions on how to crack the codes. (Enigma machines had been in use commercially since the 1920s, patented in 1918, so they weren't exactly secret.) Referencing "the greatest convoy battle of all time" and the historical Katyn Massacre in text at the end of the movie, without saying there is no historical connection between the two, also would lead to misunderstandings. (The movie never says what is fiction and what is true.) Here's what is true in the movie: There were Enigma machines, there was a Bletchley Park, there was a Katyn Massacre, there were convoys crossing the Atlantic, there was a Shark code, there was a World War II. Everything and everyone else, as far as I can tell, is made up. Did England actually sink a German U-boat off Scotland and get its Enigma machine (actually, they didn't need the machines, they needed the code books)?The movie wallows in flashbacks for the first half, (sometimes to things that happened just minutes earlier (I think -- it is hard to tell when they happened)). Frankly, I don't think I was intelligent enough to follow them. (Heck, I didn't even understand the beginning of the movie, like why Jericho was persona non grata from the project -- the movie never says what was so terrible that he had done. (I decided to take notes as I watched, but I was still lost.)) And the explanations at the end just made it all the more confusing. Yes, I got the basic plot, but the details looked like a fast sleight of hand game of follow the peanut. I never really cared. Sure, Claire was a red herring (any suspect so early on has to be). But why not just let the internal investigator handle the evidence, rather than risk jail? (Because then there wouldn't be much of a movie.) And where did that nice shiny car come from that they were driving all over the place, like Scotland, (not to mention the tightly rationed gas (which they call "petrol"))? Frankly, there were far too many totally implausible components to the story.Enigma is supposed to be Britain's revenge on Universal Pictures for making a fictional movie about Americans capturing a fictional Enigma machine from a fictional German sub. So they make a movie about the brilliant work done at Bletchley Park. (Except that in Enigma, the British intelligence agents can't find their own missing Enigma machine hidden hurriedly in a motionless car sitting right in front of them. {I'm not sure I would brag about this.}.).But was this actually made by a British movie studio? It was made by Broadway Video and Jagged Films (as in Mick Jagger), and distributed by Buena Vista (i.e., Disney). (Looks British to me.)Bottom line: There sure was a lot of confusing running around and flashbacks (plus some all too skimpy gratuitous sex {in a boardinghouse where visitors were prohibited (so the landlady must have been pretty stupid (or drunk)}) for what turned out to be a fairly simple maguffin. (I haven't seen such a pointless mess since The English Patient.) If the point of the movie was to show the brilliant work done at Bletchley Park, it didn't come close to doing them justice. They looked like a bunch of lopsided frat boys. (Meanwhile, the Yanks were making Sigsaly encrypted AD-DA transceivers (loaning one to Churchill so he and FDR could talk on the radio (look it up)} (Not to mention "Mrs. Minniver")).Spoiler alert: They never come right out and say what the point of the movie was, and why the sinking of the sub was so important (where did that sub come from in the plot, again?). But I guess anyone who could stick with the movie to the end was likely smart enough to figure that out: A British movie studio wanted to capture an Enigma machine from a fictional German sub, to top the American movie studio that captured an Enigma machine from the fictional U-571.(Congratulations.)