“Digger” embraces bad reviews in new ad after Tom Cruise movie receives tepid Rotten Tomatoes score: ‘F--- those people’

Wesley StenzelWed, September 30, 2026 at 1:01 AM UTC

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Tom Cruise in ‘Digger’Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesKey points -

Digger currently holds a 53% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film only has a 44/100 score on Metacritic.

Warner Bros. released a new ad for the movie embracing its divisive reviews.

The Digger team doesn’t need great reviews to cut together a buzzy ad.

The latest video promoting Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s new satire starring Tom Cruise features numerous quotes from critics who loved the movie — as well as many from writers who hated it.

The ad begins with a quote from X user @thejonathansim: “Digger is an ambitious film sure to polarize audiences.” It then cuts to a clip from the film featuring Cruise’s Digger Rockwell saying, “You know what? F--- those people!”

The rest of the ad shows positive and negative phrases from various reactions to the film flipping back and forth on screen including “unpleasant” and “masterpiece,” “baffling” and “brilliant,” and “insufferable” and “magnificent.”

The last piece of criticism says, “I have never wanted to say less about a movie in my life. Go in blind! I mean it,” from Instagram user @taraontv.

The ad ends with another clip of Digger speaking vaguely. “They’re afraid to tell the truth — whatever that is,” Cruise’s character says.

The film, which follows a narcissistic oil baron whose company triggers a devastating environmental disaster, currently sits at a 53% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it Cruise’s worst-reviewed project since 2017’s The Mummy and Iñárritu’s worst-reviewed film of all time. The film currently has a 44/100 score on the review aggregator Metacritic.

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The Telegraph‘s Robbie Collin called the film a “serpentine, swaggering satire” in his mixed review, writing, “Digger itself exists in that perpetually uncertain state, and I’m not sure whether the debate it’s having with itself about art’s impotence in the face of catastrophe is one it can, or even wants to, resolve. But what a thrill to watch Iñárritu and Cruise hash it out with so much beauty, daring and extravagance.”

Tom Cruise in ‘Digger’Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

The AV Club‘s Monica Castillo opined, “Iñárritu steals the spotlight. In trying to prove his cleverness with various cinematographic tricks, substance once again gets short shrift. Digger‘s story is one of those ‘there’s more than meets the eye’ situations, but once it’s all said and done, its environmental message lands with a ‘duh.’”

Meanwhile, The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw said that the film is full of “very good actors giving not very good performances,” adding that “there are moments to enjoy in Tom Cruise’s boisterous leading turn, yes, but the film’s value resides chiefly in some dreamlike and disturbing images, distorted and bulging from the screen, conjured by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designer Dennis Gassner.”

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And the Los Angeles Times‘ Amy Nicholson wrote, “It’d be a mistake to judge Digger by the standards of a normal film. There are no emotions in it, only our own cold and cruel fears reflected back at us, as with a shot of Cruise standing defiantly in front of a mirror rimmed by antlers. It’s about inertia and abdication, not solutions, and while I don’t entirely love this strange comedy, I’m giddy that it’s lurched into existence.”

Digger hits theaters on Oct. 2.

on Entertainment Weekly

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