HOPE Review: Pure Entertainment, Yet Little Beyond That - ScreenAnarchy

The last time Tom Cruise, Hollywood’s Last Movie Star, collaborated with a bona fide auteur was in 2004: the director was Michael Mann, and the film was a love letter to nighttime Los Angeles, Collateral. Coincidentally, it’s also the last time Cruise starred as a villain. Twenty-two years later, with more makeup applied than when Tropic Thunder’s Les Grossman danced into future memes, Digger has finally arrived. The latest film from four-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant) is a masterpiece. Writing this after the film has already screened for critics and opened to most audiences, it’s clear Digger won’t be Cruise’s next blockbuster triumph, having earned mixed reviews and the star’s lowest opening weekend total since 1985’s Legend. And yet… from where this critic sits, the world may have gone as mad as the one in the film’s dystopian, depressed future. Time will tell, but to cut to the chase: with a ten-cent shovel in hand, this pairing of star and director has struck creative gold. Digger is the rare film which wisely uses the artifice of art to unearth truth about humanity in the most maximalist way ever committed to IMAX screens.

Marvel Studios’ release of Avengers: Endgame: Encore was a shrewd gambit for a few reasons: It put the studio’s most successful film back in conversation right after the juggernaut success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day; it tided die-hards over with new footage ahead of December’s Avengers: Doomsday; and, perhaps most importantly, it raked in an additional $138 million for the film, reinstating its position as the worldwide box office champion over James Cameron’s Avatar. Cameron, who certainly doesn’t spend his precious time fretting about such matters as lifetime financial grosses and being the best in the world at stuff, recently expressed his congratulations to Marvel for once again overtaking his 2009 sci-fi film. “You are one of the people,” the director wrote (per The Wrap) in a composite image from Avatar, with Iron Man at the center of a welcoming Na’vi tribe. “Congratulations to Marvel and the #1 Avengers: Endgame: Encore for bringing moviegoers to the cinemas! – Jim Cameron.”