Digger: Kotaku calls Tom Cruise film ‘100 percent certified fresh’ after split reactions

The article cites a Rotten Tomatoes score of 50 percent. It also quotes several harsh descriptions, including “the most divisive movie of 2026,” “a hate letter to life, cinema, art, and its own audience,” and “the worst movie of Tom Cruise’s career.”

The film is described as following Digger Rockwell, an oilman whose drilling in Greenland has broken off part of a glacier. A tweet from @EclecticHutch echoes that view, saying the trailer was disappointing but the theatrical version later made a strong impression.

What happened

Kotaku posted an opinion piece on October 7, 2026 arguing that critics have judged Digger incorrectly. The author says the first trailer did little to inspire confidence, because it seemed to focus mainly on Cruise’s prosthetic stunt work. In the same piece, the film is framed as a project that had already sparked plenty of debate before the author even went to see it in theaters.

After a cinema visit, the same author says they were pleasantly surprised. The article references a Rotten Tomatoes score of 50 percent and earlier, very negative descriptions of the film. The writer also says they had expected “Dr. Strangelove vibes” beforehand, reinforcing the piece’s tone as a reaction to a satirical or politically charged film project.

The plot description in the article centers on Digger Rockwell, an oilman whose aggressive resource extraction in Greenland has broken off a section of glacier. That lines up with external context describing the film as a 2026 satirical black comedy, with Cruise as Digger Rockwell and Iñárritu serving as director, co-writer, and co-producer. A tweet from @EclecticHutch supports the same idea: the poster says they were initially put off by the trailer, but later saw the film in theaters and was blown away by it.

Background

The provided sources present Digger as a film that has already drawn enough attention to provoke both sharp criticism and strong defense. In context, the title is linked to Tom Cruise, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and a satirical climate-or-oil plot set around Greenland. External context also describes the film as a 2026 satirical black comedy, with Cruise playing Digger Rockwell and causing an ecological disaster through drilling on a glacier.

The source set does not fully make clear whether Digger had already been widely released at that point, or whether it was a limited release or a satirical project still building buzz. What is clear is that the Kotaku piece and the @EclecticHutch tweet follow the same arc: initial skepticism, then a very positive viewing experience. The tweet also explicitly says the trailer made the film seem like a vehicle for Cruise’s prosthetic-fueled stunt acting, while the finished movie reportedly worked much better.

The negative quotes cited in the Kotaku piece place the film in a sharply divided reception field. The text includes phrases such as “the most divisive movie of 2026” and “the worst movie of Tom Cruise’s career,” while the author themselves says the film feels “100 percent certified fresh.” That wording matches the headline and the broader tone of the opinion, which argues that the criticism has been overblown.

The plot description also matters for context. The combination of an oilman, Greenland, and a broken-off glacier points to a story mixing climate themes, resource extraction, and disaster satire. The available sources do not provide a full synopsis, so it is best to describe the film cautiously. What is clear is that the Kotaku piece, the @EclecticHutch tweet, and the external context all share the same core idea: a film that first met skepticism, but strongly won over some viewers.

Sources

• Kotaku opinion piece on Digger, published on October 7, 2026
• Tweet from @EclecticHutch reacting to the trailer and theatrical viewing