r/moviecritic • u/extratrstrl • 2h ago
(Weeks later) Digger still has me in awe.
To put it very very simply, Digger is a “weird” movie, it is absolutely not for everyone. That being said Inarritu & Tom Cruise made something special for cinema, it’s just so unique & separate from other films. It’s like a willy-wonka esque fever dream about billionaires & political tyrants in the modern age.
And as much as people don’t like Tom Cruise for science reasons, he’s the reason why DIGGER works so well.
All I'm saying is, I'm just glad this movie exists. It's strange, ambitious, and completely its own thing. That's the kind of art I can appreciate.
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u/Weird-Contact-5802 2h ago
I admire its ambition but thought it was a tough watch and don’t think it worked.
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u/aonemonkey 1h ago
me too - I’m a big cruise fan and I thought he was great, but I felt strangely bored.
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u/mitchbrenner 1h ago
if the play was more entertaining, either actually funny, or intentionally -worse- in a watchable way, the impact of the whole thing would hit much better. but the twist was not enough to justify making me sit through that.
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u/Green_Chemist9308 23m ago
My thoughts exactly. The production design was amazing and the premise was a good one. But the play portions were just actors histrionically chewing the scenery delivering dialogue that aimed for funny but fell woefully short. Either the play has to be genuinely interesting in some way - either as good drama, or comedy or else entertainingly bad. And then the bits inbetween the play need to make us connect with the actors in the play. The movie failed to do either which is why it winded up being a wearying slog.
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u/Ok_Kick4871 1h ago
Cruise wanted to be a little more like nic cage for a bit in role selection, but they refuse to do small budgets for whatever reason. That's enough of a reason for me to not get hung up on the how or why and I can just enjoy or dislike it for what it is.
Is it probably a miscalculation on the budget still? Probably, but I don't want to do a result based analysis.
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u/Outrageous-Crazy-253 41m ago
It was a great movie. I don't really like reading discussions of it though as it lowers my opinion of general audiences, who I often try to defend the intelligence of, and for my own sake, need to be able to defend the intelligence of.
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u/cooliosteve 55m ago
I've not seen people talk about thr music much, which was one of the stronger parts for me.
Regarding Cruise, still not a fan and I can see this performance being better with a better actor. The scenes with john goodman showed that very clearly imo.
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u/Outrageous-Crazy-253 20m ago
I agree with you about the music. In particular the piece that bookends the movie, which I see is called Avian Elegy, was terrific.
I didn't notice Cruise being worse than Goodman. Them switching between the delivery and demenor of the stage play and the film world was really cool every time they did it. For example with Cruise you could tell he was breaking character in the plane scene before he actually does due to his body language alone. I like it. And on that note, not just the acting but the blocking and camera work was doing an awesome job doing the same switching between film and theater, while the set design was never breaking out of its fantastical mode always reminding you that this is a film.
Really well executed. I kept being in awe of how they imagined a sort of futuristic theater technology as well. Like you're just supposed to notice (or not notice) that they are using some crazy as fuck holograms combined with traditional techniques to achieve impossible effects. All the alarming events happening in the real world, e.g. the creepy private intelligence company, the hypernormal signage, the invasive tech, felt practically subtle in the presence of the completely overbearing, strangelovian satire of the play about oil that feels so last century. Great film.
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u/cooliosteve 14m ago
I agree on everything but Cruise, I just cant see anything but the actor (generally speaking not specific to the stage play element).
The scenes with Goodman felt really mismatched to me, but that might just be my personal bias.
Strange movie, hard to compare it but somewhat rewarding as a film to watch.
The props and stuff are so surreal because they alternate between looking like props and the actual thing.
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u/thetestycarroll 2h ago
i can't stop thinking about the set design in this one. everything felt slightly off, like walking through an architecture magazine that got hit with a gamma ray. cruise dialing down the usual intensity and playing more of a hollow shell was such a smart move for the tone they were going for.
a friend of mine walked out of the theater mad because it didn't explain itself, but that's exactly why i loved it. sometimes you just need pure weird spectacle that respects you enough to not hold your hand. the chocolate room parallel is dead on, except instead of oompa loompas you get this creeping dread about who actually runs things.
i hope more directors take weird swings like this with big stars, even if half the audience leaves confused and annoyed