”There’s one sequence in Digger that gets your blood pumping, and that’s because of Tom Cruise’s acting, and also because of what the scene is saying.
“As the world veers toward calamity, Digger stands before a global assembly (it looks like the UN of the future) and gives a speech explaining why the world has remained addicted to oil. It is, he says, because you want it that way — all of us who are hooked on 1,000 lifestyle choices, far beyond gasoline-fueled cars, that we don’t actually want to give up.
“It’s the film’s Howard Beale speech, and it’s bracing to see Digger, at least for 10 minutes, stop blaming the Usual Bad Guys, and to see Cruise deliver that message with a fire-and-brimstone glee. But then that theme slinks away, and it’s back to the accusatory disaster-movie gloom-mongering.
“And while I won’t reveal anything more about the film’s breaking of the fourth wall, let me just say this: It makes the movie, however unintentionally, seem to be about nothing so much as Tom Cruise taking on this role, and Iñárritu erecting the edifice for him to stand on.
“And that’s a tone-deaf mistake. It punches up the fact that we’re never going to solve the climate-change crisis until we disentangle it from the hot air of people celebrating themselves.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s Variety review.