Are Digger’s Bad Reviews Already Ruining Tom Cruise’s Oscar Chances?

The star changes register in the new film by Alejandro González Iñárritu. But while the actor seemed destined for a first statuette, the criticism seriously dampened the enthusiasm.

Everyone had seen him as big as a house for months. At the time of the theatrical release of Diggerit is much less obvious.

In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s crazy new film, Tom Cruise delivers one of the furthest performances from his usual action hero persona. He plays Digger Rockwell, a strange and eccentric character, gray hair, big belly and a personality light years away from the cool and conquering Tom Cruise that the public knows. And that’s precisely what makes his performance so charming. The actor is clearly having fun breaking his image and pushing the physical transformation and quirky acting very far. He had already shown this side in Thunder in the tropics (2008) or Rock of Ages (2012). With Diggerhe puts on his most beautiful prosthetics and delivers a performance which, on paper, had everything to attract the attention of the Academy.

Except that the reviews didn’t stick at all, like that of First. Some are even quite scathing: Digger Currently showing only 52% on……