Enigma (2002)

In World War II, the Enigma was a German device that looked like a chunky typewriter with primitive electric lights; it could scramble messages into millions of different random codes. The legend of how the British cracked the almighty Enigma must have sounded, on paper, like a nifty mathematical thriller -- a historic ''WarGames'' set at the formative moment of the computer age. On screen, however, Enigma plays as if the scriptwriter, Tom Stoppard, and the director, Michael Apted, were themselves cryptographers; they seem to be making hunt-and-peck stabs at how to translate a tale of arcane numeric formulas into drama. At Bletchley Park, where the British gathered their biggest and, in some cases, their most cracked eggheads, we meet Tom Jericho, a Cambridge genius played by Dougray Scott, looking even glummer than he did in ''M:I-2.'' In flashback, he ponders his fling with Claire (Saffron Burrows), a blond flirt who may have been a spy. Meanwhile, her frumpier roommate (Kate Winslet) helps navigate the code. ''Enigma'' is a turgid muddle of romance, espionage, and geek valor, despite intimations that it might have turned into ''A Reasonably Dapper-Looking Mind.''

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