‘Digger’ Starring Tom Cruise Splits Critics

Critics are split on Digger. The Alejandro G. Iñárritu-directed satirical black comedy starring Tom Cruise has critics divided right down the middle.

The film has received some praise, including from The London Evening Standard, which gave it 5 out of 5 and called it “audacious, risky, terrific fun.” However, the film has also received just as many scathing reviews, such as from The Boston Globe, which gave it 0 out of 4 and called it the “worst movie of Tom Cruise’s career.” The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score reflects this split reaction, with the film currently standing at a 51% critics’ score.

The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney described the film as “A climate crisis satire so smug and bombastic it makes Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up seem almost innocuous.” Indiewire’s David Ehrlich similarly described the film as “a mega-budget Dr. Strangelove riff so detached from human truth that its most believable character is a one-eyed animatronic cat named Maggie — a VistaVision satire so high-concept that it would be more accurate to measure its running time in altitude than minutes …”

More positive reactions include from Deadline’s Pete Hammond, who had the following to say about the film:

“For me it is like a return to the kind of adventurous films in cinema’s groundbreaking era of the 1970s, but it isn’t easily defined… Iñárritu again proves he is one of the most original and fascinating filmmakers working today. Digger is the kind of movie we don’t see often on this scale, an ambitious satire that entertains, takes chances, sparks arguments, but is thrillingly alive as cinema designed to make us look at ourselves, hopefully wake up before it is too late, and ask the question: ‘What the hell are we doing?’”

Another positive reaction came from BBC film critic Nicholas Barber. Here’s what he had to say about the film:

“Most people won’t go to see it — and some people who do will walk out halfway through. But that doesn’t mean that Digger is a failure … Personally, I loved it. Some of its excesses are, well, a bit too excessive, and most viewers will wish it was shorter.”

Digger will be released in theaters by Warner Bros. this Friday, October 1st.