WHEN YOUR ECO-APOCALYPSE MOVIE IS SO BAD, EVEN THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER HATES IT: Digger Review: Tom Cruise and Alejandro G. Iñárritu Are a Match Made in Showboating Hell in a Shallow Satire Insufferably Pleased With Itself.
When an explosion is reported at the drilling site, Digger is more worried about the damage to the oil rig than he is the human casualties or the massive dislodged ice shelf headed for Europe, where scientists predict its impact will trigger a tsunami and displace millions of people. That potential disaster of course is something Digger and his father before him have known about for decades (“CO2 is just the fuse, methane is the bomb”) but have managed to hush up thanks to bribes and backroom government deals.
It’s hard to find the humor in all this with a current administration so gung-ho in its “Drill, baby, drill!” recklessness, having neutered the EPA and scrapped regulatory oversight for fossil fuel extraction. But being unfunny is less Digger’s problem than a story that ties itself in knots trying to be clever, as a completely unconvincing big twist alters the picture and opens a window to a grim future. It also means that many of the cast from a certain point on are effectively playing dual roles, not that there’s much virtuosity to admire.
Scenes of laissez-faire politics leave more of a sour taste than a smile — notably when Digger summons President Compson and his senior cabinet to his home for a meeting in which he emphasizes the need to get out in front of the story and control the narrative, using the public’s panic to their advantage.
Hardass Defense Secretary Colonel Fitzgerald (Robert John Burke, basically playing George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove) just wants to bomb the runaway iceberg. But one of the few voices of reason, scientist Ganesh (Riz Ahmed, also one of the few performances allowed any nuance), speaks up to explain how that would set off a whole new chain of disasters, refusing to sugarcoat the awful truth for the public.
The movie’s best scene, which gives Cruise an opportunity to flex his acting muscles while being simultaneously combative and charming in Digger’s folksy manner, has him addressing the European Parliament in an assembly hall that evokes the Roman Senate. By owning the global crisis unleashed by oil billionaires and a complicit government, Digger causes an uproar. But he hurls the politicians’ anger right back at them, declaring that, “Oil is the mother’s milk of Earth,” and calling the current predicament the price of doing business with a commodity that all of them want.
Exit quote: “The IMAX Countdown that precedes the film reads: ‘Watch a movie or be a part of one.’ It’s difficult to imagine mainstream audiences ever wanting to be a part of this bludgeoning ordeal.”
He’s not wrong: Tom Cruise’s New Movie Is Expected to Become the Biggest Box Office Bomb of 2026.
