Australians: How was Cumberbatch's Accent?

I've only watched the various trailers and clips but so far, better than many but still very recognisably someone putting on an Australian accent rather than actually sounding Australian. Assange's accent is pretty much exactly the same as mine, fairly neutral, urban, what we'd call "educated Australian", Cumberbatch's attempt is good but I'm still hearing an accent rather than the no accent I hear when Assange speaks. He seems to shade into South African a couple of times to my ear too, I think Aussie is difficult to maintain especially at the less broad end of the scale. If you want to compare, there's a good sample of Assange speaking with an Australian born journalist here: http://youtu.be/9A26WOvkMzo You'll find him a lot less twitchy than Cumberbatch's version too...

It will be interesting to hear what the critics here have to say in November when we get the film, they can be a bit scathing when people get us wrong. Meryl Streep's risible attempt still gets laughs in these parts.

I've only seen the trailer but it definitely sounded wrong. He got the look right, it was fine till he opened his mouth. I can't really explain what's wrong but it just sounds like he's trying too hard. But the Australian accent is so hard to do, noone I've ever seen has faked it right, except maybe Liev Schreiber in 'Mental'. And yes I agree, Benedict's was better than Meryl's. Hers was pretty terrible.

evian is naive spelled backwards

If the question is did BC manage to sound like Assange, then having watched the film and seen some interviews I'd said he did a good job.

Assange's accent doesn't sound like a straight forward Australian accent to me, maybe because he moved thirty times before his 14th bday - his accent seems to lilt slightly in its strength and doesn't seem to be very consistent in its nature.

When Assange gets passionate about something his accent seems almost like a mockery of the way an Australian sounds to other countries. The movie trailer unfortunately is full of these passionate moments; therefore if that is all you've seen it makes it seem like BC did a poor job.

If BC spoke like that while playing a any other Australian then yes it would be 'off' and not very accurate, but it seems like a good fit for Assange.

i can't see, *beep* i have no eyes - agent sands

I'm a little late to the party on this, but I'm Aussie and I think he actually did a very good job with the accent! In fact, if you listen to a Julian Assange interview he sounds a lot like him.
The trouble with the Australian accent to the rest of the world is that the only other pop culture exposure the world has to the accent is through Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin, but to be completely honest with you those accents are associated to us Aussies as "ocher" or "bogan" accents. Bogans are in their simplest form the Australian version of the American redneck, or the British chav. And they range from that deep "ocher" accent you hear in the guys such as Steve Irwin (and even Hugh Jackman puts it on too) to that screechy galah sound you hear in girls (ala Kath and Kim). Trust me, most of the Australian population doesn't sound like that. We sound a lot more like Assange.
It's very difficult to do an Australian accent, and I think Cumberbatch did a great job :)

When I started watching I thought I heard him drop a few T's like the British do (Aussies pretty much never don't pronounce a T sound, or at worst slur it into a D if it's between two words) but after the first 5 or 10 minutes I relaxed my critical ear because he was actually doing a really well.
Foreign actors almost always butcher our accent but Cumberbatch did a really good job.

To me, the accent was ok, if a bit over done, but what was up with the lisp thing???? Never heard Assange speak with a lisp.

Nailed it. drops a few times but to be expected.

hes supposed to be Australian?? get the *beep* out !