Benedict Cumberbatch, adorable and cerebral, anti-hero in Star Trek, Sherlock and maybe even Star Wars, is curiously underplayed in this curious movie about a curious man. It is half-way between a spin job by Illumnati, US State Department, Murdochian forces (choose your conspiracy) and a simple hatch job by an ex disgruntled employee. Julian Assange, Hacker Ground Zero is portrayed with adequate subtlety but inadequate credibility as an abused child, paranoid, abusive , manipulative liar while the associate who acted as consultant to the movie and founded Openleaks which hasnt really leaked anything- this is a bad job and bad art. However on 23 December 2012 Domscheit-Berg announced on the website that the organisation will not go ahead as previously intended, and would now only focus on spreading information and expertise regarding how to set up and run leak websites rather than directly facilitating leaks themselves.[29]
At times the movie is boring, at times educational. The nice Matrix like visual special effects fail to bring the emotional connection. Mr Cumberbatch risks alienating his core geek fan club- ironically the movie which has shown bad box office results only shows the irony- Benedict Cumberbatch made more money acting as Julian Assange than Julian Assange did acting as himself.
Fifth Estate indeed- but a second rate movie!
DECISION STATS 