So the reviews are in, and it looks as if the same reaction from early screenings is shared by the pro critics. Digger is dividing audiences.
Alejandro Inarittu’s Digger is an apparent big swing for Mr. Matinee himself, Tom Cruise. It currently sits at a decidedly mixed 53% (6.1/10) on Rotten Tomatoes.
The devil is in the detail as there seems to be no middle ground. Either it’s a 8 or 9 out of 10, or a 1 out of 10 The mid-range is barren.
The reviews all say Digger goes large. The issue is whether it succeeds or not.
To try and make some sense of this, let’s take a stroll through the summary pages:
“Cruise has always been best in portraying extremes of male ego. His Digger will no doubt join those ranks. But, like the film, it’s the quieter, foreboding moments of his performance that stick with you.”
Jake Coyle, AP
“Screw jumping off mountains, satirizing the men in charge with this level of viciousness feels like the biggest risk of Tom Cruise’s career. But it pays off brilliantly.”
Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
“When Cruise is clambering all over the set, delivering thunderous lectures on the oil industry, I couldn’t help grinning at the gargantuan scale of his performance, the conviction of the script’s grim environmental message, and Iñárritu’s antic style.”
Nicholas Barber, BBC
“When you’re watching a film that doesn’t really seem to work, which then voluntarily indulges the suggestion that its very existence might be completely pointless — well, then, why did any of us, filmmaker or audience, bother in the first place?”
Clarisse Loughrey, Independent
“All these preening, obnoxiously self-satisfied moments, and so many more, add up to a movie so convinced of its own brilliance that it cannot see it is in fact the most banal variety of idiot: loud, ugly and forever oblivious to its own shortcomings.”
Barry Hertz, Globe and Mail
“‘Digger’ is what happens when you give the week’s worst ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch an inexplicably large budget and delusions of grandeur.”
William Bibbiani, The Wrap
“You can tell that [Tom Cruise and Alejandro González Iñárritu] think their new film is urgent. And in a way, it is. Audiences will urgently want to leave after the first five minutes.”
Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
“A tedious satire, slamming capitalistic greed, anti-environmental profiteering, rampant corruption, and horrid narcissism with all the bluntness of the shovel its protagonist reveres.”
Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“Digger” is a mega-budget “Dr. Strangelove” riff so detached from human truth that its most believable character is a one-eyed animatronic cat named Maggie.”
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
“I was reminded of colossal misfires like Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, bloated movies by directors so drunk on their exalted reputations they forgot there was an audience to consider.”
David Rooney, THR
“Cruise gets to grandstand and overact in downright embarrassing ways, chewing the scenery with impunity.”
Odie Henderson, Boston Globe
Digger opens this Friday and, one way or another, it seems to promise something different to superhero movies.
