Benjamin Lee
TheGuardian
Most Divergent Takes
- Ladies First (2026)2.0 vs TRM 4.2-2.2
- undertone (2026)4.0 vs TRM 6.0-2.0
- The Gorge (2025)4.0 vs TRM 6.0-2.0
- Mortal Kombat II (2026)4.0 vs TRM 5.9-1.9
- The Invite (2026)8.0 vs TRM 6.6+1.4
The Invite
2026 · TheGuardian
Like that film, it is also about two adult couples negotiating anxieties surrounding sex with other people – and also like that film, it's really, consistently funny and stylishly directed, made with the kind of care and rigidity that comedies just aren't afforded now. The Invite marks a notably exciting new high for her.
Obsession
2026 · TheGuardian
Obsession is satisfyingly slick proof that he knows just what to do when levelling up to a different platform. Barker treats unconditional, and creepily non-consensual, love like a demonic curse, and Navarrette is astonishingly, chillingly good at the intricacies of such a transformation.
undertone
2026 · TheGuardian
There's a swirl of creepy noises in A24's new hyped-up horror Undertone – screaming, gargling, singing, banging – but nothing is quite loud enough to drown out the swirl of films it's cribbing from. It's a film that manages to be both cluttered and empty.
One Night Only
2026 · TheGuardian · Aug 2026
The film is the ungainly result of a four-cocktails-in elevator pitch which imagines a world where single people are only legally allowed to have sex on one night of the year... an overstuffed yet undercooked soufflé that can't quite, ahem, rise to the occasion. Instead, One Night Only weirdly plays like lulling government propaganda, a film about sex purge to be released in time for sex purge that says that actually maybe sex purge is a good idea after all.
Ladies First
2026 · TheGuardian · May 2026
It's an excruciatingly unfunny high-concept thought experiment, imagining a world with flipped gender politics, that's far too happy with itself and what it's allegedly achieving to be passed off as just some charming throwback. Like the other misfires it recalls, it's also a criminal waste of talent, a murderers' row of actors who hopefully got paid handsomely for the embarrassment of this whiffing up their IMDb pages.
Mortal Kombat II
2026 · TheGuardian · May 2026
There's something maddeningly unexciting about them, a two-hour tease of something that never clicks into place. It all has the distinctly cheap whiff of something that should have gone direct to the small screen – hammy acting, stilted dialogue, chintzy effects, tinny score, Halloween costumes – but without the raucous fun that should come with it.
Scream 7
2026 · TheGuardian · Feb 2026
Scream 7 is a scrappy, passably entertaining new chapter that limps to the screen with wounds on show. There's just about enough here to show signs of life but Williamson often feels like he's treading water when he should be drawing blood.
How to Make a Killing
2026 · TheGuardian · Feb 2026
But when dragged into the real world, of discernment and taste, it's a package that brings up a string of concerning questions. At the end of 110 minutes, I can provide the answers: no, yes, 100% and I really have no idea. Forget a killing, Ford has made a real mess instead.
The Gorge
2025 · TheGuardian · Feb 2025
The Gorge is a slickly made but increasingly dumb Apple mockbuster where Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy flirt over an abyss full of creatures. Both actors are in full autopilot mode, flatly flirting with such lack of passion it feels awkward, and the film bears too much of that synthetic Apple feel, as if it was primarily made to show off the abilities of a new iPhone.
The Idea of You
2024 · TheGuardian · May 2024
With Hathaway at its centre, The Idea of You is on far surer footing, in small moments almost threatening to be something far greater but settling into being perfectly acceptable instead, a plane movie par excellence. It's all not ultimately enough to truly transport us back to the genre's heyday but it's a damn sight better than what we've been forced to get used to.