Benjamin Lee

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The Guardian
For 618 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 28% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 70% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 12.6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Benjamin Lee's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 53
Highest review score: 100 Moonlight
Lowest review score: 20 The Girl in the Photographs
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 104 out of 618
  2. Mixed: 470 out of 618
  3. Negative: 44 out of 618
618 movie reviews
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    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    The Life List
    The word “messy” is bandied around by its characters but The Life List is far too clean.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Georgetown
    Curiously flat ... From the opening few frames through to a clunky introductory sequence, there’s something frustratingly off-balance about Georgetown.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Vacation Friends
    The base ingredients are here – a charming, comically adept cast, a fun culture clash set-up, idyllic scenery! – but they’re carelessly tossed together rather than combined with any thought, care or even slickness.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Krampus
    It's nowhere near as good as many of the films it so wants to be positioned next to, but it's nasty enough to leave an impression.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Your Place or Mine
    Even as glossy run-of-the-mill formula, it’s never even close to being as funny or romantic as it needs to be, devoid of fizzy one-liners and hampered by the pair struggling to muster up chemistry during phone conversations that never feel as lived-in as they would for friends with such extensive history.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Apartment 7A
    James had impressed with her debut, the dementia horror Relic, but any of that film’s texture or creepiness has dissolved on a larger scale.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Mary Shelley
    Shelley’s mistreatment by the literary elite because of her gender is a compelling, uniquely frustrating element and the film deprives us of the suitably grand exploration that it deserves.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Downhill
    There’s a lived-in chemistry that’s missing from the pairing and the film’s great many awkward moments between them don’t feel quite as cutting or as uncomfortable as they should. It’s a dark comedy that feels too light.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 20 Benjamin Lee
    Spenser Confidential
    A clumsy, unfunny adaptation of a much-loved literary crime series
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    How to Make a Killing
    There’s also no real satire here either (moneyed folk are apparently bad, did you realise?) and at this stage of the rich-eating cycle, I just want it to be over. Forget a killing, Ford has made a real mess instead.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    The Promise
    There’s something rather dusty about The Promise as George pushes his characters through a string of soapy machinations that feel incredibly familiar.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Single All the Way
    It’s pure mass market Christmas cookie cutter stuff that’s only made vaguely interesting in very short bursts because of its queerness.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Venom: Let There Be Carnage
    It’s at least a short film, clocking it at around 90 minutes, Serkis chopping off any extraneous fat, but it floats by and floats on without ever causing us to sit up and pay attention. Let there be no more.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Miss Americana
    It’s brand management dressed up as insight and while it’s not not entertaining, it’s certainly far from particularly revealing, playing more like a PR exercise then a festival-worthy feature.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Army of Thieves
    There’s nothing markedly necessary about universe expander Army of Thieves, niche fan service that gives backstory to a character who we know dies later on, but Schweighöfer, also acting as director, keeps his frothy caper afloat with a light knockabout tone, never insisting the film as anything that it isn’t.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Souvenir
    It’s a film so light that it barely exists but Huppert makes it worth remembering.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
    Even when it’s trying too hard, the very fact that it’s trying at all makes it hard to dislike. The rules might not make any sense but you’ll have fun playing along regardless.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Lady and the Tramp
    Lady and the Tramp works well enough on its own simple terms as watchable, competently made home viewing.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    The Predator
    There’s definite fun to be had here and franchise fans will surely appreciate both Black’s nods to the past and his plan for the future but there’s something forgettable about its freneticism, and I struggle to imagine in 31 years if it will be thought of at all.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Underwater
    What frustrates me most about Underwater is just how very little it brings to the table. It’s a solid, competently directed regurgitation of an oft-told tale that never manages to justify its own existence
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Blue Miracle
    It’s the sort of old-fashioned string-puller that when done well is hard to resist even if we know the strings are being pulled, like we’re aware of the bait but powerless to resist.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    The Gallerist
    What should be wickedly cutting in-the-know dialogue is soft and uninventive, what should be a seat-edge string of escalating circumstances becomes increasingly tiring and hard-to-buy and while the cast is game, they mostly struggle to find the right level for Yan’s admittedly difficult-to-match zany energy.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 20 Benjamin Lee
    Thrash
    We should be on the edge of our seat but every should-be set piece falls flat, the choreography always feeling a little off and the editing never works as tightly as it should.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    The Thing with Feathers
    What’s crucially missing is detail, both in the characters themselves and the weight of what they’re going through.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    The Map That Leads to You
    Trusty hands help in making the film feel grander especially when the emotion of the story, adapted by Dante’s Peak’s Les Bohem and Don’t Make Me Go’s Vera Herbert, can’t quite get us there.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Cat Person
    The chillingly unanswered questions of the story are all given the most obvious answers imaginable and relatability is carelessly tossed aside, along with logic and investment.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    I Feel Pretty
    Even though the script might let her down, Schumer does still manage to sell a smattering of the comic moments (the opening scene has a promising knockabout tone), but when she reaches the more dramatic elements, she struggles to convince.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Sacrifice
    Gavras leaves them and us stranded on the way to his out-there ending.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    The Mountain Between Us
    As an unpretentious and unashamedly mainstream romantic adventure, it’s a solidly entertaining diversion, old-fashioned in its no-frills brand of storytelling and direction.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    In the Shadow of the Moon
    There’s a slicker, more coherent and ultimately more thematically audacious film to be made from the disparate elements that make up In the Shadow of the Moon but what we have is a lovable mess nonetheless. Its ambitions are easy to criticise but hard not to admire, a mad little movie with big ideas on its mind.
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