What Critics Are Saying About Cruise's Digger Satire

Renowned director Alejandro G. Inarritu swings hard at climate satire in Digger, but Moira Macdonald of the Seattle Times find the result more draining than incisive. "Watching it soon becomes an ordeal," she writes. The film centers on Tom Cruise, buried under gray hair, prosthetics, and a fat suit as oil baron Digger Rockwell, who discovers his empire has triggered an imminent ecological catastrophe. Despite Emmanuel Lubezki's lush cinematography and Cruise's full-tilt performance, Macdonald argues the movie stalls after an early, predictable twist and wastes talents like Sandra Huller. She's not alone: The film has a lackluster 54% fresh rating from critics at Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences are more forgiving at 65%. Other takes:

• Manohla Dargis, New York Times: It's "such a lumbering white elephant of a movie that it almost makes you sorry for everyone involved," she writes. That includes Cruise, whose performance is spirited but mostly "a collection of moments" that "never cohere."
• Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal: This type of movie has been done before, more skillfully, he writes. "In painting the oil industry as nefarious, it dares to go where everybody has gone before: Syriana, There Will Be Blood, The World Is Not Enough, On Deadly Ground, and dozens of others. It could have been titled On Well-Worn Ground."
• Nicholas Barber, BBC: "Personally, I loved it," he writes. "Some of its excesses are, well, a bit too excessive, and most viewers will wish it was shorter. ... But 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 Inarritu's antic style."