Tom Cruise’s Digger could be his worst-reviewed film since The Mummy
Tom Cruise’s big-budget black comedy Digger has been labelled everything from “brilliant” to “borderline unwatchable”, potentially complicating the actor’s hopes of landing an Oscar.
The film, directed by Academy Award winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, has a 52% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That would make it Cruise’s most poorly reviewed film since The Mummy in 2017.
Reviewers’ comments have swung between heavy praise and cutting criticisms.
The Boston Globe described it as a “turgid, unfunny, and borderline unwatchable 128-minute mess”, while Metro UK called it a “disaster”, with the reviewer writing, “I couldn’t wait for it to be over.”
Others have responded more favourably to the film, which opens in New Zealand cinemas today.
Collider praised what it called Cruise’s “bizarre but brilliant performance”, while the Daily Mail called it “bold and often brilliant film-making”.
Showbiz Junkies, which gave it a B+, said the film was novel.
“Digger’s a fever dream – equal parts chaos and spectacle – and guaranteed to be unlike anything you’ll ever see attempted again,” wrote reviewer Rebecca Murray.
The divided reviews are accompanied by conflicting forecasts for its opening weekend.
World of Reel reported that the film could debut with ticket sales of less than US$10 million ($17.7m), while Box Office Theory projected an opening of between US$16m and US$26m.
Although the estimates differ substantially, even the higher forecast would represent a modest debut for a production reported to have cost more than US$125m, the Daily Mail reported.
In the film, Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an eccentric oil magnate described as the world’s most powerful man. Digger attempts to address an environmental catastrophe for which he is responsible.
John Goodman co-stars as an authoritarian United States president. The politically charged satire examines climate change and corporate greed through the actions of its wealthy and powerful central characters.
Digger is a departure from the action blockbusters that have dominated Cruise’s career in recent years, particularly the Mission: Impossible franchise. It is also one of his relatively few awards-focused projects in almost three decades, according to the Daily Mail.
Digger feels like a “homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 masterpiece Dr Strangelove, with environmental disaster supplanting nuclear warfare as the principal threat to humanity”, wrote the Mail’s Brian Viner, who gave the film four stars out of five.
Cruise, 64, has never won a competitive Academy Award, although he has previously received acting nominations. His 2022 blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick earned six Oscar nominations, including best picture.