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Here there be spoilers!
It was rather odd that the first trailer released for “Digger” spent most of its runtime as a sizzle reel for Tom Cruise’s career. As clips of the actor’s biggest hits filled a montage, I questioned why we needed this refresher course in the films of one of the most bankable stars of the last four decades. And then it hit me: it was a pure ego trip. After all, this is a man whose Ethan Hunt, in the recent “Mission: Impossible” movies, had other characters offering speeches about his greatness.
My weary cynicism blinded me to the parallel the “Digger” trailer had to Robin Williams’s 1992 disaster, “Toys.” That Barry Levinson film may have the funniest teaser trailer ever cut — and you don’t see a single frame from the movie. It was just Williams riffing. If you’ve seen “Toys,” you know why Fox didn’t want to show you any clips from the movie, opting instead to sucker you in with Williams’s penchant for hilarious improvisation.
When Warner Bros. offered up a second trailer for “Digger,” it was full of clips. Trailers are marketing devices, which is why I dislike them. So it’s only natural that the studio would want to entice you with a funny joke, a salacious bit of innuendo, or the dangled carrot of “what happens next?” The “Digger” trailer made me ask, “Is this the best two-and-a-half minutes they could carve out of this movie?”
The answer is yes, because there aren’t two-and-a-half minutes of a good movie in this turgid, unfunny, and borderline unwatchable 128-minute mess. The mess isn’t even hot here; it’s as ice cold as the filmmakers think their satire is, and as devastatingly bad as the cataclysmic climate control crisis at the center of its plot.
In fact, this movie is confused about what satire actually is. It can’t tell the difference between the stage play, “Noises Off,” which is a farce, and “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” which is the hilarious and timely satire “Digger” so desperately wants to be.
If you doubt me, know that late in the film, Tom Cruise’s character (who shall remain nameless at this point in my review) actually says, “This isn’t satire, it’s farce!” He then asks, “Why is this funny?,” which led me to write “OK, I’m being trolled” in my notebook. You can find traces of Cruise’s self-deprecating humor if you go back 30 years to “Jerry Maguire” or more recently, to 2008’s “Tropic Thunder,” where Cruise played a character like the one he plays here. But it’s been in short supply since, and it’s clear that director and co-writer Alejandro G. Iñárritu thinks he’s bringing it back.
The script feels as if there was no communication between Iñárritu and the four other credited writers. Even worse, their central conceit is stolen from Preston Sturges’s wonderful 1941 satire, “Sullivan’s Travels.” The big difference is that the great Mr. Sturges had a sense of humor, while Iñárritu has always had absolutely none. His idea of big laughs is having John Goodman’s president of the United States repeatedly scream out “I’ve got cancer in my a–hole!” or reveling in the visual brutality of a raggedy, fake looking cat who is clearly in pain from old age and numerous illnesses, including cancer. Those cancer jokes must have slayed in the writers’ room, folks.
Of course, the poor cat dies. It was the only character worth a damn in this godawful misfire.
I’ve given you enough time to exit this review. As critics, we’re not supposed to reveal spoilery plot points. Mind you, the “twist” in this movie occurs 20 minutes in and changes the entire structure of what happens over the next 108 minutes. Unlike my review for “The Drama,” I refuse to work around the twist here. You were warned.
Turns out “Digger” is the story of the onstage and backstage dramas of a play, one that depicts a real climate-based disaster caused by the world’s most powerful man, Digger Rockwell. An actor in heavy makeup named Curtis (Cruise) plays Digger. I’ve no idea how they expected this concept to work, as this play does not look as if it could possibly be presented on a stage.
What is the point of presenting the movie this way? The backstage shenanigans have no dramatic heft, nor do they contribute anything of worth. A category 6 hurricane, a missing plane, and a lead actor battling the director (Sophie Wilde) are the major elements of the backstage drama, none of which are fleshed out enough for us to care.
However, we do get scenes where people tell Curtis he’s a great actor! The play concept also gives Iñárritu a chance to shoot scenes of audience members giving spirited standing ovations to his own movie’s plot.
The story you were sold in ads is a red herring to get you into the theater to hear endless commentary on climate change and how fossil fuel is ruining Earth and will kill us all if we don’t act. Cruise delivered this important message far more effectively when he voiced Captain Planet on that animated series from the 1980s.
I assumed that the play within “Digger,” called “Fossil Fools,” was meant to be dreadful, but we’re told it’s run for 25 years and has been a huge hit. Meanwhile, on “stage,” everyone from Goodman to Riz Ahmed (as an actor playing an abused Indian scientist) screams incessantly and makes endless speeches. As the actor playing Digger’s onstage sister, Sandra Hüller is shockingly bad. Cruise gets to grandstand and overact in downright embarrassing ways, chewing the scenery with impunity. And there’s a lot of scenery for him to chew: This film was shot in VistaVision.
In addition to pointing out in dialogue every possible criticism one could have with the movie, “Digger” distrusts its audience so much that it literally stops for its actors to explain the movie’s themes to you. One of these themes is that people suffering through a global crisis need something to take their minds off their troubles. That something, as Joel McCrea’s character learned in “Sullivan’s Travels,” is a comedy. I bet Iñárritu and Cruise thought they were offering the same option with “Digger.” By comparison, doomscrolling about the world going to hell is a better use of your time than paying to see this movie. You’ll laugh more, for starters.
Editor’s note: Odie has written only nine zero star reviews in his 20 years as a critic. At the Globe, this marks his fourth.
ZERO stars
DIGGER
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Written by Iñárritu, Sabina Berman, Jez Butterworth, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone. Starring Tom Cruise, John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Sophie Wilde. At Coolidge Corner, AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 129 min. R (the characters swear as much as I did watching them)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.
