The film, which is slated to open in theaters nationwide on October 2, currently sits with a "rotten" approval rating of 52 percent on the prominent review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, alongside a more troubled score of 44 out of 100 on Metacritic. For Tom Cruise, whose storied career boasts some of the most universally acclaimed and commercially dominant blockbusters in cinematic history, these numbers place Digger in rare territory. To put the Rotten Tomatoes score into perspective, one of Cruise’s historically lowest-rated major studio releases on the platform remains the 1988 romantic comedy-drama Cocktail, which holds an 11 percent rating. Yet, rather than attempting to bury the polarizing response or waiting for audience word-of-mouth to build organically, Warner Bros. opted for a shockingly transparent promotional strategy.
As Entertainment Weekly first detailed, the newly released promotional spot opens with a direct quote from X user @thejonathansim, which reads, "Digger is an ambitious film sure to polarize audiences." The ad immediately cuts to a gritty clip from the movie featuring Tom Cruise in character as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, who bluntly declares to the screen, "You know what? F— those people!" From there, the fast-paced marketing spot accelerates, flashing a rapid-fire series of contrasting buzzwords and critical phrases pulled from early reactions. Viewers see words like "unpleasant" flash opposite "masterpiece," "baffling" paired directly against "brilliant," and "insufferable" juxtaposed with "magnificent," perfectly capturing the sheer whiplash of critical opinions surrounding Iñárritu’s latest cinematic endeavor.
Critical reactions from major entertainment outlets have indeed run the gamut from harsh dismissals to cautious praise. In his mixed review for IGN, critic Michael Calabro awarded the film an "okay" score of 6 out of 10, highlighting both the film’s ambitious swings and its ultimate shortcomings. Calabro noted in his review that Digger’s satire may not fundamentally change anyone’s thinking on global warming, though he conceded that the movie features genuinely excellent performances and more than a few laughs along the way. However, Calabro also offered a word of caution to prospective ticket buyers, writing that the picture is far from a must-watch and advising audiences who feel skeptical based on the trailers to save their money. In his assessment, the theatrical experience ultimately will not change a skeptical viewer’s mind, suggesting that the laughs present in the film will still be just as accessible when the title eventually makes its way to streaming on HBO Max.
Billed by the studio as "a comedy of catastrophic proportions," the biting satire casts Tom Cruise in what may very well be his least recognizable screen role to date. Sporting a radical physical transformation, Cruise stars as Digger Rockwell, a ruthless and eccentric oil tycoon whose reckless drilling operations inadvertently trigger a massive, world-changing global disaster. The pairing of Cruise—a legendary movie star known for anchoring meticulously polished, high-octane blockbusters—with Iñárritu, an auteur celebrated for deeply intense, heavy dramas like The Revenant, Birdman, and Babel, has long been a subject of immense industry fascination. That unexpected creative collision now appears to be driving the exact brand of chaotic, love-it-or-hate-it discourse that the studio is actively capitalizing on as the theatrical release date approaches.
With anticipation and curiosity now reaching a fever pitch following the release of the polarizing reviews and the studio’s defiant marketing campaign, Digger is set to test the limits of audience appetite for high-stakes satirical comedy when it officially opens in theaters on October 2.
