Benjamin Lee

Select another critic »
The Guardian
For 618 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 28% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 69% 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
view
per page
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Benjamin Lee
    Nobody
    It’s all very been here, seen that yet there’s something infinitely pleasing about a film doing very little but doing it very well, knowing just how high to aim without aiming any higher, aware of exactly what it can and can’t do. In a tight 91 minutes, without any bloat, Nobody gives us exactly what we want.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Greenland
    It’s an adequate, involving enough afternoon watch (faint praise: better than Geostorm) and for those with a certain destructive itch that still needs scratching, this should do the job.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Benjamin Lee
    The Lodge
    It’s a bruising movie, being sold on the promise that it’s “scary as hell”, a quote that I worry will mislead expectant horror fans. The scariest thing about The Lodge is how human it all is.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Summer of 69
    Actor turned writer-director Jillian Bell’s naked, and sometimes literally naked, attempt to craft a new rewatchable comfort food favourite with notes of both sweet and salt is charming when it works but distractingly effortful when it doesn’t.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Official Secrets
    Official Secrets is a well-intentioned retelling of a daunting act of courage and as a vehicle for informing more people of who Katharine Gun is, it’s effective, carefully laying out the incremental stakes as well as her noble intentions. Credit for this however lies almost solely with Knightley.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Benjamin Lee
    Native Son
    It’s a fiery, flawed, often stunningly made film that provokes uncomfortable discussion, rather like the Richard Wright novel it was based on, although purists might argue over some key changes.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Nyad
    While a dedicated Bening gives her all in a tough, physically demanding role, deserving of at least another nomination if not necessarily a win, it’s Foster who steals the film with a fine reminder of her easy charisma.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    I Want Your Sex
    It’s certainly a return to what many know him for – vibrant colours, unfettered sex, madcap plotting – but it’s also missing that same sense of infectiously boisterous energy. The parts are here but there’s nothing to truly animate them, just the vague hope that maybe nostalgia might be enough.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    I'm Your Woman
    Even when it’s coasting, the cast still works hard to sell what they’re given and it remains visually handsome until the very end, an immersive and slickly captured last-act car chase proving a standout.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Benjamin Lee
    Burning Sands
    There’s no clumsy exposition here to explain motivations but delicately scattered crumbs involving status, family and the crippling strain of competitive masculinity.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 20 Benjamin Lee
    Space Cadet
    The uplift of a woman triumphing in a male-dominated Stem world isn’t enough to get us through a mess of grindingly unfunny dialogue, too-broad performances and an utter, movie-killing lack of charm.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Kiss of the Spider Woman
    We’re in safest hands with Lopez and Condon when he’s playing in that sandbox as the cell-based scenes can be a little stagey and rushed in comparison.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Blood Quantum
    Barnaby’s colonialist take on the formula is far from subtle, and at times a little too bluntly on the nose, but he’s a film-maker with both something to say and the skillset to say it in a distinctive way, offering up an initially engaging alternative to mere guts and shock tactics.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Stowaway
    The focus on the job at hand works until it doesn’t as with just the slightest of characterisation, we’re invested in the problem rather than those solving it and the grip of the first two acts loosens as the finale beckons.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 80 Benjamin Lee
    Let Him Go
    With its handsome, and expensive, period recreation, a wide rural American canvas and an audience-provoking last act, it’s a shame that more of us won’t get to enjoy Let Him Go on the big screen, where it truly belongs. But for those who will, they’re in for a wild ride.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    The Rip
    A movie to be enjoyed on Friday night and forgotten all about by Saturday morning.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Free Fire
    There’s something lacking, a touch of the bizarre or the perverse, with just one particularly nasty death to serve as a reminder that you’re watching a Ben Wheatley film.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    In the Earth
    In a flawed yet fierce return to form, Ben Wheatley has crafted a phantasmagoric treat with In the Earth, an ambitious, atmospheric little woodland horror.
    • 31 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Friend Request
    It’s slickly made but shoddily scripted, with sub-reality TV dialogue...and a range of unengaged, soapy performances. There is some fun to be had from the loud and nasty death scenes though, which allow us the pleasure of seeing self-absorbed Facebook addicts get gruesomely murdered.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Uncorked
    The formula is so well-trodden that it needed a sparkling jolt of energy to justify Penny traipsing his way through it again. Uncorked isn’t exactly corked but it’s definitely flat.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Lee
    The life it’s focused on, that of model turned second world war photographer Lee Miller, is an undeniably interesting one, but it’s only in the briefest of moments that the film justifies why it’s a narrative endeavour rather than a documentary and every one of those moments comes courtesy of its lead.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Totally Killer
    There are echoes of Happy Death Day, Back to the Future and The Final Girls in Amazon’s perky Halloween offering Totally Killer, echoes often loud enough to drown out the film entirely. Its time-travel slasher plot cribs elements from all and relies on enthusiasm over invention to keep us entertained, a gamble that only works in brief bursts.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    Beautiful Boy
    There are moments of crushing emotional weight but as the film progresses, they start to carry less power.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Red White & Royal Blue
    Red, White and Royal Blue just isn’t the fun, brain-disengaged romp it could have been, any praise going toward intention rather then execution.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    The Swimmers
    There’s an extraordinary story to be told here. It’s just a shame it had to be told in such an ordinary way.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 80 Benjamin Lee
    Fall
    Fall is the rare three-drinks-in “what if?” elevator pitch that somehow survived the journey to the big screen, made with unusual precision and punch.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Benjamin Lee
    I Want You Back
    It’s a far better version of a romantic comedy than we’re used to streaming of late.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Una
    Mara and Mendelsohn have a compellingly toxic chemistry together and their initial confrontation is intriguingly tense. But once we’re locked into the meat of the story, the film has nowhere else to go, at least anywhere that’s of interest and the pace becomes laborious as their discussions turn repetitive.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Plane
    It’s just about diverting enough for the most part but there’s something a little off about its pacing, French director Jean-François Richet (who peaked a while back with his propulsive Mesrine movies) struggling to corral his moving parts, suspense never really arriving as it should.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Benjamin Lee
    Daddio
    While Hall’s script might keep us at a remove, her direction takes us closer to something that feels more real, managing to conjure the specific thrill of travelling from the airport to the city at night, the hum of possibility increasing with every mile and finding ways to make what could have felt like a static location come alive, putting us in the car right next to her characters.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »