Tom Cruise's Digger Is Addressing The Haters Head On After Polarizing Reviews Drop

A studio has a few ways to respond when the responses to its expensive new movie debut are all over the place, which is the case with Digger's reactions. A studio can cherry-pick the glowing quotes, slap five stars across the trailer and quietly pretend nobody used the word “insufferable.” However, it would appear that for the new Tom Cruise vehicle, Warner Bros. is choosing to directly address the polarizing reviews and haters.

Digger, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new climate satire starring Cruise as billionaire oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, has its review embargo lifted. With that, critics are immediately divided into two camps: those who didn’t dig it and those calling it a masterpiece. The studio shared a new promo on its official X account telling moviegoers to “Decide for yourself.” Better yet, the ad below pairs some of the nastier reactions with the high praise:

The promo repeatedly juxtaposes positive and negative reactions. When it shows a “Masterpiece,” it also shows “Unpleasant.” “Brilliant” faces “Baffling.” The ad eventually lands on the line, “Same film, different truth,” which is brilliantly paired with Cruise’s character saying, “Never afraid to tell the truth. Whatever dat is.” That is certainly one way to lean into a mixed reception.

At the time of writing, Digger sits at 53% on Rotten Tomatoes from 116 reviews, which is about as close as you can get to critics collectively shrugging and saying, “You’re going to have to handle this one yourself.”

The reviews themselves are all over the place. Variety called Cruise’s performance bombastic and the movie too didactic, while Time Out gave it four stars and commended its wild ambition. The Los Angeles Times landed somewhere in between, describing the movie as messy but finding plenty to admire in Cruise’s swing-for-the-fences performance.

Given these wildly different reactions, if I were Warner Bros., I might do exactly what they are doing here. From the very Digger first trailer, it seemed pretty clear that trying to sand off the weirdness would be impossible anyway.

Cruise has spent years reminding audiences that he can hang from airplanes, launch motorcycles off cliffs, sprint like the rent is due, and allegedly even optimizes his sports watching. Digger gives him something very different.

The movie casts him as an eccentric Texas oil magnate, whose company helps trigger a potentially disastrous environmental crisis. Cruise is buried under prosthetics, working with a broad accent and going method to play a character far removed from Ethan Hunt or Pete Mitchell. The supporting cast includes Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons and Michael Stuhlbarg. That alone makes the movie interesting to me, even before you get to Iñárritu swinging at climate change, greed and political dysfunction in the form of a black comedy.

Although some critics think those swings land and others think the movie falls over trying, it all makes Warner Bros.’ marketing response unexpectedly refreshing. There is something funny about a studio looking at reviews calling its movie “magnificent” and “insufferable” and deciding both belong in the trailer.

Digger hits the 2026 movie calendar, opening in theaters and IMAX on Oct. 2. At this point, I almost feel challenged to see which side I end up on.