A rather ham fisted look at the information wars, which contains some drama but takes too long to get to the good stuff.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 31, 2021

It is less involving when we're forced to sit through ancillary storylines and conflicts that do little to advance the story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 7, 2020

Very few films this year have registered such a lack of an emotional reaction.

| Original Score: C- | Jul 23, 2020

You can't make a character study of a man with this many secrets and you can't make a thriller out of people typing.

| Original Score: C- | Aug 27, 2019

Cumberbatch is by far The Fifth Estate's trump card, bequeathing us with a convincing impersonation of Assange. Sadly, that's all it is: an impersonation.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 5, 2019

Given its own aggressive attention deficit disorder, The Fifth Estate is the sort of movie that might induce a migraine.

| Feb 22, 2019

We understand and even sympathize with Daniel's crisis of conscience, but it is not enough to sustain the whole enterprise, and it would likely have been better to dramatize more of WikiLeaks' effects on the world and discuss them a bit less.

| Original Score: B- | Jan 25, 2019

This noncommittal viewpoint of a "half WikiLeaks documentary/ half dramatic narrative" made for, ultimately, one mediocre film.

| Dec 14, 2018

Nonetheless, this is an engaging portrayal of what will likely be a historical game changer in news and transparency.

| Nov 1, 2018

Those in the know say Cumberbatch's performance captures the physical Assange perfectly, but the film fails to get a handle on him as a personality, or offer any kind of insight into what his true motivation might be.

| Sep 5, 2018

Daniel Bruhl was highly watchable as Assange's second in command, and all these interesting people grappled with compelling questions about what their rights and responsibilities were towards the information they were handed.

| Aug 22, 2018

Condon misuses his characters and tries to turn the film into a suspenseful high-stakes drama but falls very short in his execution.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 14, 2018

This is absurdity piled on melodrama piled on rubbish trousers and weird Ikea furniture, a bad weekly meeting of the Hampstead chapter of Fathers 4 Justice with added Pantene.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 6, 2018

A movie about Assange and WikiLeaks is bound to be tough to tackle and while it has a few things going for it, Condon could have scored better if he chose to focus deeper on Assange's admittedly complex and mysterious psyche.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2017

Yes a stellar cast was compiled, but it rings false nonetheless.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 22, 2016

There are real treasures to be had here, the most prestigious of which is an effortless turn from Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2016

This breathless thriller that treats the speed of data as a matter of life and death.

| Mar 27, 2015

Benedict Cumberbatch's performance is the knockout, precise, conflicted, mysterioso, wily, his own charm alloyed with the Aussie oddness of Assange.

| Apr 4, 2014

The film never seems to know what it wants to be, or where it is going with all of these gimmicks, gadgets and subplots. It ends up as a yawner, a thriller with no thrills, history without context.

| Original Score: C | Mar 24, 2014

A great performance surrounded by a very bad movie.

| Feb 9, 2014