Digger… This looked great from the trailers, but there’s something we weren’t told in advance – which is partly what nuked this film, and I will go into this in the film, so if you want to know absolutely nothing before you see it, then stop reading!
For the basic plot, Tom Cruise‘s overdemanding character is an oil magnate who only thinks about the money, but there’s a problem with their drilling in Greenland, which has disturbed the trapped methane, and caused a crack that’s 5ft in length.
While the titular character mocks the issue, saying it’s “10 times the size of my dick“, the problem soon grows to 9 metres in length, it’s not stopping, and the worst case scenario is that a huge ice shelf will break off, drift into other countries and cause millions of deaths.
But a quick pit-stop here, since the mocking part came across great in the trailer – as Cruise goes off on one – but the effect is killed, here, as the camera is, instead, focused on safety officer Sandy Clarkson (Danny Kirrane – The Serpent Queen). I hate it when they ruin stuff like that. Why would you?? Several films have done things like this, including 2024’s Bad Boys 4, as I describe in there.
Up until this point, Digger is presented in a side-cropped 1.50:1 aspect ratio, a la Bugonia and Obsession.
So, the first 35 minutes or so are great, but then came something I wasn’t expecting, as it wasn’t given a heads-up in any of the teasers and trailers… Cruise and John Goodman, as President Compson, are looking out of a huge window, to a gorgeous countryside scene… at which point a large tree quickly falls over. I thought this was a comical assumption to how their environmental issues might pan out…
…but it turns out they’re looking at a completely fake scene. And the room they’re in is part of the set. And they’re rehearsing a play… So, you’re TOTALLY taken out of the atmosphere that was built-up during that opening act, and I was wondering what the fuck was going on. During these scenes, the aspect ratio also changes to 1.85:1, adding picture at both sides.
I’ve seen a few similar set-ups over the years, but the one it most closely aligned with was Amazon’s similarly weird 2021 series, Kevin Can F**k Himself, which would start with a typical old-style U.S sitcom with a canned laughter scene, after which, wife Allison (Annie Murphy) went into the kitchen for a rather darker scene with a tinge of drama, and it’s like she’s in a different world entirely. The programme would then cut back and forth between these two types of scenes.
Another similar example was while watching Michael Fassbender leap tall-ish buildings with a single bounce in Assassins Creed… before it cut back to him in the Animus (reality, so to speak), as the machine throws him about, and it went back and forth… and killed the atmosphere, since the game just lets you play within the scenario, and you only see the Animus again after the scenario is complete or you die in the meantime.
During these brief sections, there’s a dull subplot where the lead’s daughter is on a plane, and then he’s having trouble contacting her, but I just can’t understand why the film wasn’t wholly about the situation posed in the trailers, since that’s what we were sold.
However, even when it does get back to that, it falters in a scene where Cruise is standing in a the middle of a grey, court-like room, during which he starts shouting before climbing over the furniture. And then doing more shouting. And then everyone else starts shouting. And it gets very tiresome.
Obviously, while I won’t say how the film ends, it’s done at the point where the film has transitioned to being a play in front of a theatre audience, and I was losing the will to live by that point.
Maybe if we’d had more of the first act, with more of Cruise and Goodman hamming it up nicely – and none of the ‘behind the scenes’ junk – Digger, would’ve been a much better film.
Now, I’m all for trying something original – and Digger is Tom Cruise’s first new I.P. since 2017’s American Made, during which he’s given us an unnecessary Top Gun sequel, three unnecessary Mission Impossible sequels, and nothing else – but this new film feels like director Alejandro G Iñárritu started off with something great, and then self-sabotaged it. It’s like he wanted it to flop, a la The Producers.
If you’re not sure whether to watch this film, then by all means, check it out, since you won’t know if you don’t see it. It does have a strong opening, such as with Digger’s cat being so ill that according to a vet, the pussy “has between two weeks and… five minutes“, but then all such moments were put in the trailer.
Digger also feels more like a Wes Anderson movie at times, albeit one where he’s had far too many drinks beforehand, leading to a film that doesn’t really work out well at all. God knows how a $180m budget was agreed, and to date, it’s taken $20m at the worldwide box offce! Yet again, Warner Bros is taking a huge bath! Maybe they knew of the forthcoming merger with Paramount, and so just didn’t care, and figured someone else would pick up the tab?
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credit scenes.
Digger is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 129 minutes
Release date: October 2nd 2026
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect ratio: 1.50:1; 1.85:1 (some scenes) (ARRIRAW (4.5K, 4.6K), X-OCN ST (8.6K))
Rating: 4/10
Director: Alejandro G Iñárritu
Producers: Tom Cruise, Alejandro G Iñárritu, Mary Parent, Michael Sharp
Writers: Alejandro G Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, Sabina Berman
Music: Cosmo Sheldrake
Cast:
Digger Rockwell: Tom Cruise
Ganesh: Riz Ahmed
President Compson: John Goodman
Emma: Sandra Hüller
Vice President: Michael Stuhlbarg
Kenny: Jesse Plemons
General Fitzgerald: Robert John Burke
Lina: Emma D’Arcy
Defense Secretary Amos: Burn Gorman
Hannah: Sophie Wilde
Sandy Clarkson: Danny Kirrane
Dr Berg: Ross Hatt
Adelia: Mercedes Hernández
Brad: James Dryden
Steve: Richard Foster-King
Hope: Flora Higgins
Admiral Jacobs: Corey Johnson
AG Schumer: Pip Torrens
Reverend Nathaniel Moore: Stephen Wight
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.