Digger reviews split sharply over Tom Cruise’s climate crisis satire

Digger has arrived to an unusually stark critical divide, with Alejandro G. Inarritu’s new film starring Tom Cruise drawing ecstatic praise from some reviewers and brutal dismissals from others. The Warner Bros. film was hovering around an even 50 percent split on Rotten Tomatoes right out of the gate, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

That division is easy to see in the first wave of verdicts. The London Evening Standard awarded the film 5 out of 5 and called it “audacious, risky, terrific fun”, while The Hollywood Reporter’s own review described it as “A climate crisis satire so smug and bombastic it makes Adam McKay's Don't Look Up seem almost innocuous”.

Why Digger reviews are so divided

The early response suggests that Digger is provoking strong reactions rather than producing a settled middle ground. The Hollywood Reporter said the top critic reviews were brutally split, with unusually strong superlatives on the positive side and scathing language among the negative notices. Its own review landed firmly in the latter camp, arguing that the film’s climate-crisis satire is overpowering rather than controlled.

THR wrote that “Digger is basically what happens when you put two outsize egos together with nobody holding the reins to keep their most self-indulgent impulses in check”. That criticism points to the film’s scale and tone as central fault lines in the debate. The same qualities that one critic may see as audacious can be experienced by another as excessive.

At the opposite extreme, THR reported that the London Evening Standard gave Digger a full 5 out of 5 and described it as “audacious, risky, terrific fun”. Another negative review cited by THR went as low as half a point out of 5 and described “a film full of mostly talented people doing the worst work of their careers”. The gap between those reactions is unusually wide.

Outlet	Verdict or score
The Hollywood Reporter	Called it “A climate crisis satire so smug and bombastic it makes Adam McKay's Don't Look Up seem almost innocuous”
London Evening Standard, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter	5 out of 5; “audacious, risky, terrific fun”
New York Post, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter	Called it Cruise’s “first real stinker in nearly 10 years”
The Guardian	Described Cruise’s loudmouth oil tycoon going hard in Inarritu’s eco-satire

What Digger is about

In Digger, Cruise plays an oblivious oil tycoon whose drilling operation in Greenland dislodges an ice shelf from a glacier. The accident threatens to cause a global disaster, forcing his character into a race to prove that he is humanity’s saviour before the ecological consequences wreak havoc on the planet.

The premise puts climate catastrophe, corporate power and self-appointed heroism at the centre of the story. It also gives Cruise a markedly different character from the action roles that have defined much of his recent screen work. The Hollywood Reporter described him as nearly unrecognisable in the part, while The Guardian characterised the character as a loudmouth oil tycoon going hard in Inarritu’s eco-satire.

The film surrounds Cruise with a substantial ensemble. Riz Ahmed, Sandra Huller, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons also star. That cast is part of what makes the severity of some of the negative reaction especially striking, including the half-point review cited by THR that attacked the performances across the production.

Tom Cruise Digger reactions focus heavily on his performance

Cruise’s performance is one of the clearest dividing points in the early criticism. The New York Post, quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, called Digger his “first real stinker in nearly 10 years” and wrote that “Audiences will urgently want to leave after the first five minutes”.

The Post was also sharply critical of Cruise’s comic characterisation. According to the quotations reported by THR, it said, “He's just not very good, even as a cartoony caricature with no depth”. It compared the performance unfavourably with Cruise’s turn as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, saying he “did this kind of thing vastly better” in that earlier role.

Those remarks sit alongside the London Evening Standard’s enthusiastic assessment of the film as a whole. The contrast helps explain why readers looking at the headline scores alone may find Digger difficult to categorise. The response is not simply mixed in the sense of mild approval and mild disappointment; the available reactions stretch from a maximum score to some of the harshest language attached to a Cruise film in years.

Digger puts Alejandro G. Inarritu in full satire mode

The critical argument also extends beyond Cruise to Inarritu’s handling of the film’s environmental satire. The director’s story is built around a man whose own drilling triggers the looming disaster and who then tries to establish himself as the person capable of saving everyone from it.

THR’s negative review specifically attacked the tone and scale of that approach, comparing the film unfavourably with Don’t Look Up and describing Digger as more smug and bombastic. The London Evening Standard’s positive response, as reported by THR, appears to embrace the risk-taking qualities that other critics found excessive, calling the film audacious as well as terrific fun.

The Guardian’s review likewise foregrounded the film’s combination of Cruise’s loudmouth tycoon and Inarritu’s eco-satire. Taken together, those descriptions indicate that Digger is not prompting disagreement because critics are seeing different kinds of movies. They are responding in radically different ways to many of the same central elements: the oversized protagonist, the ecological premise and the film’s deliberately forceful satirical approach.

What the 50 percent Rotten Tomatoes split means for Digger

The Hollywood Reporter said Digger was hovering at roughly a dead-even 50 percent split on Rotten Tomatoes right out of the gate. That figure matches the polarised language in the individual reviews THR highlighted, from a 5-out-of-5 endorsement to a half-point dismissal.

For audiences deciding whether to see the film, the more useful question may therefore be what kind of response they have to an intentionally broad climate satire centred on an exaggerated oil tycoon. The early reviews do not offer a common verdict. Instead, they show critics sharply divided over whether the film’s scale, risk-taking and Cruise performance work as bold satire or collapse into self-indulgence.

With Digger now generating such extreme reactions at the start of its critical run, attention will remain on whether later reviews narrow that divide or reinforce the early 50 percent split around Cruise and Inarritu’s climate-crisis satire.

Frequently asked questions

Why are Digger reviews so divided?

The early reviews disagree sharply over the film’s tone, scale and satire. The Hollywood Reporter criticised it as smug and bombastic, while THR reported that the London Evening Standard awarded it 5 out of 5 and called it “audacious, risky, terrific fun”. Rotten Tomatoes was hovering around an even 50 percent split at the outset.

What is Digger about?

Digger stars Tom Cruise as an oblivious oil tycoon whose drilling in Greenland dislodges an ice shelf from a glacier, creating the threat of a global disaster. His character then races to prove he can save humanity before the ecological accident causes devastation. Alejandro G. Inarritu directs the Warner Bros. film.

What are critics saying about Tom Cruise in Digger?

Cruise’s performance has drawn especially strong reactions. The New York Post, quoted by The Hollywood Reporter, called Digger his “first real stinker in nearly 10 years” and criticised his cartoony characterisation. The Guardian, meanwhile, described him as a loudmouth oil tycoon going hard in Alejandro G. Inarritu’s eco-satire.