Benedict Cumberbatch: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

4. Julian Assange - The Fifth Estate (2013)

The general consensus seems to be that Cumberbatch is excellent in the poorly received adaptation of the Wikileaks story, which was something of a critical bust, but the performance and the film are one and the same thing.

The direction is poor at worst and utterly misguided at best, and while there is some pleasure to be had watching the actor's performance as Assange - or a cliched vision of idiosyncratic geniuses in general - the film is so relentlessly bland that it's hard to raise any sort of enthusiasm for Cumberbatch.

The result, then, is a sort of weird living museum piece - notable for its similarity, but almost completely devoid of charisma or impressive ornamentation. It's not so much a performance as an impression, and that's in no way as rewarding.