Since I felt putting all 59 DC Comic movies was a bit too much for one list, I decided to make a second post of it! That way, there’s most stability and this specific ranking doesn’t feel too clutter for one piece. My previous one was rankings from #59 to #26. This list will consist of #25 to #1!
No more time and filler! Let’s finish this MASSIVE movie ranking!
25.) Watchmen
24.) Zack Snyder’s Justice League
23.) Stardust
22.) Blue Beetle
21.) Clayface
20.) Teen Titans Go! To The Movies
19.) Aquaman
18.) The Suicide Squad
17.) The Lego Batman Movie
16.) Superman II
15.) Superman (2025)
14.) Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Now that Clayface is now out in theaters, I decided to do something totally insane and rank every single DC movie ever! Not just the movies related to the DC Extended Universe or the brand new DC Universe but all theatrically-released films that have some sort of connection to DC. That includes all the Batman, Superman, DC imprints, and even animated films that have been released in theaters of all kind!
Throughout last year, I actually took the time to watch every other DC-related film that I haven’t got around to just for the sake of making this list. Why? Because I have no life whatsoever and I like making insane lists! That’s why!
But anyways, let’s get into list making and rank all 59 theatrically-released DC Comics films from best to worst! If you agree with this list, awesome! If you disagree, fine and I likely will by the time I actually publish this! Either way, let’s have some fun and rank these superhero flicks!
Btw, NO I’m not going into any sort of description of each said film because then this list would take a million years to make! I’m just gonna let the ranked number for each film speak for themselves!
Remember when Sony did those incredibly pointless Spidey villains spin-offs that nobody went to see except for the Venom movies for….some reason?! And remember how some of you actually enjoyed those Venom movies in an “ironic” way, even though that entire trilogy was nothing but big, dumb messes with tonal inconsistences, bizarre directing and acting choices, and having virtually no identity of their own whatsoever?! Well, here’s DC Studios equivalent of that except you can actually enjoy it in an UNIRONIC way, strictly because it is actually a smart and clever movie with a perfectly controlled tone, directing and acting choices that are actually ON point, and a film that has an actually identity of it’s own. To put it simply, if you wanted to see an actual good Venom movie that does NOT star Logan Marshall-Green, Clayface has you covered.
Premise: Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is an actor whose face is disguised, and he turns to a scientist (Naomi Ackie) who transforms his body into clay, but begins to lose his sanity as he is unable to recognize himself.
The key to Clayface working as well as it does is by applying the formula that has worked for most modern horror films: win big by playing small. It’s no secret that Clayface has a budget that’s much smaller than your usual superhero film, reported to be around $30 to $44 million at best. However, it’s able to use it’s limited budget to it’s fullest advantage, proving the right amount of grossness and gnarly nature that feels appropriate for it’s story and titled character. Sometimes all it takes is only limiting yourself to a handful of tricks and you get some rather impressive results. While you do feel the budget restraint somewhat in it’s first two acts, by the time we get to the final stretch, it goes into full unleashed mode and does NOT hold back whatsoever.
What also helps wonders is the lead performance by Tom Rhys Harries. He’s completely buyable as the A-list Hollywood movie star that Matt Hagen has build his reputation as throughout his career AND his total transformation into one of Batman’s rose gallery baddies, using his new powers to get revenge on those that destroyed his lives. Even if you don’t 100% buy his motivations to want to get back on everyone that backstabbed him, you won’t be able to deny that it’s so damn satisfying to watch him return the favor. He also has pretty good chemistry with Naomi Ackie’s Dr. Corr, the woman that is responsible for Matt’s transformation and the only source of happiness that he has after he becomes the monster that he never believed he was destined to be. I’m so gonna dread the day when Batman has to go up against this version of Clayface.
Although Clayface does work pretty well as a “Venom but done right” experiment and fits perfectly in the same realm of compelling side adventures with Batman’s foes such as Joker, The Penguin, and Birds of Prey (That movie rocks! Don’t @ me!), it does feel lacking when you compare it to other recent horror flicks with limited budgets. Perhaps had this film came out a decade ago, it wouldn’t be as noticeable. But considering the 2020s had given us instant original horror classics such as Sinners, Obsession, Weapons, Talk To Me, and The Substance, all films of which were made with pure pennies compared to 99% of blockbusters today, it is understandable to be tad underwhelmed that Clayface isn’t quite in the same league as that.
And this also might be the least interesting version of Gotham City that we have ever seen in any live-action Batman medium. Nothing in here represents the Gotham City we have been accustomed too in any way, shape, or form. You could’ve replaced this with literally any other city and it wouldn’t make a difference whatsoever. And that’s not even taking away the fact that Batman is no where to be seen here. Between this, The Penguin, and the ungodly long wait for The Batman: Part II, our favorite Caped Crusader has been slacking off as of late (Can’t wait to see How It Should Have Ended’s next superhero parody!).
Also, while the slow burn direction of seeing the journey of Clayface in his final finished form is quite satisfying for me considering how compelling of a character Matt Hagen is here, for those that are expecting the actual Clayface itself to gain the majority of screentime will be very dissapointed here.
To give it a hint, Clayface himself has just SLIGHTLY more screentime here than the spider-women did in Madame Web! (At least here, it works for the development of the main character and not just in some random flashbacks sequences that could’ve been completely cut out of the finished film entirely!).
In the end, I still don’t think we needed a Clayface movie in the DCU before say we got Wonder Woman or even freaking Batman but for what we got here, it’s pretty damn good. It’s able to work as an engaging villain origin story, an intriguing character study, AND an enjoyable B-level horror flick all at the same time. The special effects are great, it moves at a good pace, and it doesn’t wear out it’s welcome, making for an enjoyable night out at the movies AND for a solid Halloween pick for the fall season.
If you happened to be that one sane individual that wanted to see a live-action R-rated version of the both “Feat of Clay” episodes from Batman: The Animated Series, you got your wish here!
Alright, I haven’t been able to be upload pieces on here like I’ve wanted to do for the past month for personal life related reasons. Because of that, I’ve decided to started doing more mini-reviews on here so that I actually have free time AND you all get reviews of recent movies. I’ll still plan to do a more in-depth review every now and then whenever I have the time to do so but I would expect more short and quick-to-the-point reviews for right now. There’s just too much going on in my personal life right now to stay 100% focused on here.
But earlier this week, I attended the fan screening for Laika’s newest film Wildwood, a stop motion animated epic that is based of the 2011 novel of the same name by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis AND has been in development for 16 years. In the film, a teenage girl named Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and her classmate Curtis (Justin Tremblay) travel into an enchanted forest in search of her infant brother after he is abducted. They find a manor and learn about a coming war from a mysterious woman who tragically lost her son.
To get to the main point, Wildwood is yet another impressive achievement in terms of stop motion and animation from Laika studios. The narrative hook of a young girl going through the ends of the earth to save her baby brother and learning fascinating revolutions about him along the way is incredibly engaging and refreshing, there is not a single moment of art or craftsmanship that feels lazy and phoned in, the set pieces are among the best in any animated film in recent memory (the flying sequences make the original How To Train Your Dragon look tame in comparison), the entire voice cast, regardless of how big or small their roles are, bring their absolute A game, and the soundtrack by Dario Marianelli adds an extra layer to the film that it likely wouldn’t have had if it were in the hands of any other composer. If this film really took 16 years to get made like they say it did, then those were 16 years that were very well spent.
I don’t think it’s the very best from Laika Animation or up to the levels that Paranoman, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Coraline were. There are times where the pacing comes to a screeching halt in order to allow for more emotional moments to come into play during the middle stretch and the runtime can get on the wayside once we get to the second half of the film. There is also the resolution which makes sense in terms of arcs and themes but felt like it was missing an extra beat or two to really hit home, almost like it was requested from the studios to trim the runtime a hair so it doesn’t fall into the two and a half hour long trap that most live-action movies suffer from nowadays. None of these flaws are able to put a dagger on the film whatsoever but I DO think they do enough to prevent it from being the near flawless masterpieces of some of Laika’s other work. Then again, even middle-of-the-pack Laika far surpasses the middle-of-the-pack likes of say Illumination Animation and dare I say….modern Disney.
I should also give a big warning that this is NOT a film for young kids whatsoever. This is Laika’s very first PG-13 rated film and you can DEFINITELY tell. The very first scene of the film involves a naked child committing suicide for crying out loud! (No, there’s nothing too graphic about that moment but it perfectly sets the dark tone the film has going for!) Wildwood contains it’s fair share of cruelty and mild haunting imagery such as strong fantasy violence, mild bloody scenes, and a couple of characters saying some naughty words.
There is just NO way in hell that you can sell this movie as just being another hard PG rated movie like Laika’s previous work or even the kind of PG movies that studios had back in the 1970s and 1980s before PG-13 was even a thing! Coraline was able to operate perfectly as being little Johnny’s very first horror film. For the most part, Wildwood is able to operate as little Johnny’s very first stop motion epic, giving the glimpse feeling of what it felt like to be in the same cultural wave as The Lord of the Rings back in the early 2000s. Just make sure he has a parent with him in the movie theaters!
After hearing that this film took 16 years to make, I can’t help but think how far we have come since 2010, for both better or worse. While animation has been taking into new heights and it has now become a medium that is able to push the storytelling boundaries you couldn’t possibly imagine back before 2010, we also have seen AI come into affect since then, coming to terms with the fact that the days of actual craftmanship in film are being numbered as each passing day goes on. Wildwood is proof that pure art and craftmanship still holds strongly to this day and stands up anything that robots could do.
I’m sorry but you can NOT tell me that ChatGPT, Claw, Grok, or any other AI generated slop would be able to top the whimsical and wonder of every flying sequence with the birds, the enhancing world building of Wildwood, the dramatic and emotional scenes with Prue and her entire family, or even the (slightly) overlong yet still equally amusing subplot with Curtis trying to prove his worth to a girl he likes in class. I’m sure it can give a slight hand in detecting bugs and errors but that’s it and that’s the way it should be. (Or if you ask director Travis Knight, it shouldn’t be a way…..at all).
When that day comes and we see that it is no longer possible for any film production to function without having AI involved, I can only imagine that I will view Wildwood in the same spotlight that I do with ParaNorman, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Coraline, as being among the last remains of a golden era of animation and filmmaking. Still, even when Laika is not quite perfect, it still leaps and bounds ahead of plenty other animation studios working today. And Wildwood is certainly no exception to that!
But for now, I will give this film a very strong 3.5 out of 4 stars but put a pin in there for a potential 4 out of 4 stars for the near future.
Let’s address the broken record out of the gate: Aaron Sorkin can’t direct! Despite being one of our finest screenwriters working today, he can never translated his thought provoking ideas properly on the big screen whenever he is given the full director’s chair. A Few Good Men, The American President, Moneyball, Steve Jobs, and of course, The Social Network all benefitted because Rob Reiner (RIP!), Danny Boyle, Bennett Miller, and of course, David Fincher were behind the camera and NOT him. He has a directorial vision that isn’t so much tryhard or style over substance but having ZERO sense of tryhard or ZERO sense of style or substance to speak off, just constantly delivering motion pictures that are visually flat despite hard hitting material, containing clunky direction with massively talented actors forced to carry their own weight, and constantly going to class at the Joss Whedon school of characters being overly clever and quippy just because. Every time he is given a chance at directing, Sorkin ALWAYS gets exposed butt ass naked off his own personal flaws as an entertainment creative. For all the redeemable qualities that the scripts for Molly’s Game and The Trial of the Chicago 7 contained, both films would have benefitted GREATLY if literally anyone else was behind the camera.
And I don’t think there’s a better place to test that hypothesis of Sorkin’s own limits as a director than with his newest directorial feature The Social Reckoning, the spiritual successor (NOT the OTHER S word!) to 2010’s The Social Network that dramatizes the 2021 Facebook leaks by the whistleblower Frances Haugen and Jeff Horwitz. However, this time around, Mr. Fincher is not directing as he is too busy working with Quentin Tarantino, with his spin-off of his (supposed) second-to-last film he will ever make, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. That leaves only Aaron himself to carry the baton that he helped start but has been left alone to do it all on his own yet again. And even more so than his other directed films, The Social Reckoning displays Aaron Sorkin flaws harder than ever!
Premise: Facebook engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) and The Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) blow the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets.
It’s easy to see why Sorkin was interested in returning to the world of Facebook and revisiting the legacy of Meta Head/Facebook Creator Mark Zuckerberg given the current political climate and how more critical social media has played a role in our lives now. In 2010, Facebook felt like it was living up to it’s intended goals, creating a social network service designed to bring people together from all walks of life, regardless if you met a person in real life or on the internet, to a create a much bigger and more unifying world that you couldn’t before. While there were negative side effects of it, the pros almost certainly outweigh any major cons.
Fast forward to 16 years later and that special, optimistic nature of Facebook is long gone, replaced by nonstop cynicism, tiresome rage bait and “hate” speech, and the constant spreading of “fake” news left and right. And despite all the complaining and acknowledgement of the obvious elephant in the room over the years, we still find ourselves stuck in a constant loop that is this bleak era of the internet we are currently living in because well….we have no where else to go.
To give credit to Sorkin, he has no desire of repeating the same notes he did back in 2010. In The Social Network, that not only fully explored the origins of how Facebook came to be and the bumpy as hell road to it’s creation but also the massive benefits that would come for it. In The Social Reckoning, it’s all about the massive downsides that have come with Facebook and how exactly it has operated to being the negative cesspool it has become. And with a writer that is known from using his own wits and intelligence to craft multilayered, satisfying scripts, what better person to tackle how bleak Facebook and the internet as a whole has become throughout the past 16 years other than him. While making a follow-up on that angle makes perfect sense in theory, the execution of it leaves plenty to be desired.
The Social Reckoning isn’t so much interested in exploring the effects on the mental health and radicalization of folks who use Facebook on a daily basis but more so of the ins and outs of how it became to be. This main narrative thread is carried by our two leads with Frances Haugen and Jeff Horwitz, played by Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White respectively. Frances is interested in getting to bottom as to why Facebook has become so hateful after seeing her friend get radicalized by supposed far-right, white extremist internet groups despite being a very progressive liberal at some point in her life. Jeff takes her under his wing (So much so that he has her wearing incredibly revealing dresses whenever she comes over to his apartment to give the impression they are on a date to his neighbors!). He is a Wall Street Journal reporter that covers the political landscape and believes current day factors have contributed to the rise of constant negativity on Facebook. Oh, and Mark Zuckerberg is in here too (played by the shockingly flat Jeremy Strong) because he attended a senate hearing about fake news and misinformation constantly being spread on Facebook after a certain controversial election, which the meeting also happens to take place on the exact same day as a certain controversial event that took place in our nation’s capital.
The underlining problem here is that the journey to discovering the extremely flawed algorithms of Facebook is not particularly interesting. I don’t really care how Facebook was operated to be the negative cesspool that is now, I’m only interested in seeing the consequences of it from it’s daily users and how it has affected them mentally. The handful scenes we do get of seeing the folks affected by Facebook and the desire for more internet restrictions plays out like comically over-the-top Saturday Night Live sketches and the cinematic equivalent of Boomer parents demanding for the internet to be banned because they can’t do their damn jobs themselves of keeping their kids off of it. Yes, it’s sad that kids get bullied on a daily basis on the internet, maybe the parents should supervise them to keep them away from any kind of cyberbullying.
The whole experience comes crashing down in the final act of the film, where we see the full events of January 6th, 2021 unfold (Yeah, spoiler alert but it’s already been revealed that the film contains it!). Even if you take away the fact that the film commits the cardinal sin of inserting it’s own OC to tie into this horrific day for no reason or how the whole sequence of events is shot like a Sydney Sweeney sports gambling commercial, the film seems to be under the impression that the results of January 6th is in large part because Zuckerberg couldn’t be bothered to censor or fact-check Facebook “enough”. It’s not the algorithms or plain extremism of political ideology that caused these events to happen, it’s because Facebook was allowing too much free speech on it’s platform and the government should have more eyes and ears about what is said on the internet. Aaron, you do know that protests and riots have occurred BEFORE the rise of the internet, right?!?! I get you don’t like Mark (I don’t either!) but come on!
This is suppose to act as the major culmination of the film but it comes off more as Sorkin spinning his narrative wheels all willy nilly, perfectly displaying how this time period of fake news and misinformation is still going on with no end in sight and no solution to present. It’s even more laughable by the time the credits roll and we get notified of the events that transpired after January 6th, only to be reminded that no lessons were learned at all, little to no consequences of Facebook and the rioters occurred, and we are still living through the aftermath of that event five years later. It makes you wonder why Sorkin even bothered to make the film at all if the main points that are brought up constantly throughout the film ends up contradicting itself by the end.
It’s not a totally unwatchable experience. Much like prior written and directed Sorkin films, it does move along at a nice, breezy pace and contains enough zingers that has become a staple of his filmography that helps carry the entire picture. Despite the film constantly jumping from multiple different timeframes throughout, I never felt lost or confused, largely because there is always a reminder after each scene as to what year each new scene takes place, which surprisingly flows much better than you would think.
Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White do good work here, having the most engaging banter and material throughout the film. It doesn’t play into traditional couple dynamics or even working relationship tropes but just two determined individuals trying to bring something into light that could cause them both deeply. Bill Burr stands out greatly as Charlie Garrigan, a former Facebook investor and member of Zuckerberg’s legal counsel, even if a majority of the scenes is largely takes place in that exact senate hearing, with the same tiresome “fact check” sequences with Zuckerberg that only work because Burr is so believable in everything he’s in.
Speaking of which, Jeremy Strong does not work as Mark Zuckerberg whatsoever. Removed from the charming sociopath nature that Jessie Eisenberg brought in The Social Network, Strong ends up playing Zuckerberg as the most straightforward tech bro figure you could possibly imagine, with nothing standing out from your usual straightforward tech bro figure. This may not be entirely Strong’s fault as Sorkin was clearly NOT expecting Eisenberg to step down from his game changing role as the world’s three or fourth most infamous billionaire but he doesn’t do himself any wonders here.
The Social Reckoning is certainly a film to admire on the surface, having the balls to address a major cancer that has polluted internet and political discourse throughout the past decade plus is a genius one. But none of the material is put to good use, with it falling into the same trappings that prior directed Sorkin films does (The score by Alexandre Desplat is disturbingly flat btw!) and no unique perspective to fall back on here that makes it worth backing despite it’s subject matter. Much like with Digger, I might agree with what the film has to say but that doesn’t mean I have to like the film because of it.
I suppose if you just want a film that will make you angry at tech bro billionaires for two hours and have you leaving the theater raising your fists, there are certainly worse alternatives than The Social Reckoning. But considering we got a Elon Musk documentary in theaters now and Artificial on it’s way to theaters in a couple of months to give you that exact fall, you might just want to log out for this one.
And NO, I am NOT watching that four-hour long Elon Musk documentary! I have more important things in life to spend four hours of my life on!
Alejandro González Iñárritu and Tom Cruise’s newest film, Digger is now out in theaters…..and playing in completely empty screenings. While I highly doubt anyone thought this would do Spider-Man: Brand New Day numbers, Digger is bombing at the box office in ways that very few films ever has before. With a budget that’s somewhere between $125 to $180 million dollars to a market campaign that did everything except explain what the actual plot of the film was, this is looking to be one of the biggest financial bombs in recent history, only grossing $8 million domestically and $20 million overall in it’s opening weekend. Considering all the other films that have crashed and burn since the 2020s have come around, Digger being among the worst of the worst is saying a LOT!
After seeing the film, it’s easy to see why this has not attract an audience whatsoever. It’s just really, REALLY bad! It’s certainly bad in a FASCINATING way and a bad film in a way that only an unconventional director like Alejandro González Iñárritu could possibly make, but it’s still bad all the same. Similar to what I say about Joker: Folie à Deux just two years ago, I can’t help but feel like this will be among the last “special” bad films we are ever going to get anytime soon. Not only because of how much money has been thrown at this with little to no satisfying box office results and it’s rather divisive critical reception but because of the massive black whale that is Paramount Skydance about to swallow up Warner Bros Discovery.
In case you haven’t heard, Paramount Skydance have been giving the full greenlight to purchase Warner Bros Discovery, anti-trust lawsuits and monopoly laws be damned! It’s believe that after tomorrow October 6th, the merger will be 100% completed and the faith of Warner Bros Discovery will be in the hands of CEO David Ellison, A.K.A. the father of Larry Ellison, A.K.A. the head of Oracle and the SECOND richest man in the world! Now strictly known as Skydance, Ellison is looking to use his recent purchases of Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros Discovery to conquer the movie industry and define how big films will be featured for the foreseeable future in Hollywood!
What once was the peak, is now just the beginning.
Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture. By combining them, we aren't rewriting history — we're equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine. Together, we are Skydance: a creative-first home for… pic.twitter.com/uInLRY3IrE
I can go into a million different reasons why this is horrifying beyond measures but put it simply, if you didn’t like it when Disney bought 21st Century Fox back in 2017, well you are almost certainly not gonna like a buyout that is basically the STEROIDS equivalent of that! While Ellison has constantly promised that the combination of Skydance, Paramount, and Warner Bros will help release up to 30 films a year, there is absolutely no guarantee of that happening giving the insane amount of debt that will be attached to the studio come Tuesday morning. And if we are going by the track record of 21st Century Studios since Disney bought them and David Ellison’s Hollywood resume as whole, that will mean far more focus on brand recognition and IP and far less on actual original projects like Digger!
And even though Digger is technically awful, it’s the kind of awful that only happens when a director with a complete vision helms the project without the higher ups at the studio weighing it down. It’s the kind of awful film that almost warrants seeing just to be a part of the conversation and NOT something that isn’t worth paying attention to because it’s the same old corporate slop that Hollywood has been serving for a long time. And best of all, it’s the kind of awful film that a studio head like Ellison wouldn’t greenlight in a million years because it’s ultimately a critique of people like him and why the world is in the dark, cynical place that’s it in right now due to people like him.
To further explain what I’m talking about, it’s time to go into full spoiler territory for Digger! If you haven’t seen the film and/or don’t want any spoilers, you might want to stop now and click off the article! You have been warned!
If anyone was wondering why the trailers didn’t show jacks**t about this entire film other than how Tom Cruise has been Hollywood Jesus for the past 40 years, that’s because in doing so would give away the big spoiler reveal/plot twist that is revealed after the initial reel. That twist being that none of the events happening in the movie is real!
Tom Cruise is NOT the actual titled character of Digger but just an actor named Curtis Markson playing the role of Digger Rockwell, a wealthy oil tycoon whose company causes a potential world-ending disaster in Greenland. The events that is shown throughout the entire film aren’t actually events that’s happening in real life but from a staged play titled Fossil Fools, a satirical Climate Change play about an event that played out that sunk the whole world to a complete and utter abyss and the incompetent clowns that were largely responsible for that. This is all taken place in a dystopian future where global disasters have already happened and AI and government officials have 100% taken over our lives as a result of it!
So, yeah! I think you can understand why they couldn’t show anything in the trailers. Not only because this would’ve given away what the film is actually about in ways that are beyond unsatisfying but this would’ve been the quickest way to turn any sane individual off from spending 15 to 20 dollars on a movie ticket to see in theaters. This ain’t a story where Tom Cruise gets to be Tom Cruise and dig his way through the whole mess that he caused, it’s a story where Tom Cruise imagines a “What If?” of an already happened scenario of him doing just that. (As a matter of fact, I don’t even think we get a single shot of the movie with Digger with an actual shovel outside of when he is in his pajamas!) This ain’t a film where a film where Alejandro González Iñárritu wants to use a black comedy satire to go into the ins and outs about global warming and climate change but wants to use a black comedy satire OF a black comedy satire that goes into the ins and outs about global warming and climate change.
The oddest part of all of this is the way the film continues to just trot along after revealing the big blockbuster after the first half hour of the film. It goes back and forth of Curtis doing rehearsals of Fossil Fools with Cruise doing his awkward accent that you’ve seen in the trailers and Curtis offstage drama with his wife and daughter, with Cruise going back to his normal voice. Even though the cat is out of the bag and the big magic bunny has already been pulled out of the hat, the film kinda acts like it never did that and still continues along with it’s full satire play is being played completely straight, with moments where it feels like Iñárritu has to come on camera and explain the themes of the movie, as if he doesn’t think his audience is smart enough to get it. It’s like Iñárritu watched Vice and Don’t Look Up on loop and thought, “Hold my beer!”
The closest thing we get to a real conflict with our main character Curtis is when we get updates of what’s going on with his daughter, whose plane she’s on disappeared on a radar because of a hurricane that transpires throughout the course of the film. And even then, that gets responded with a complete whole, “OH, SHE’S OKAY NOW, I GUESS!” and that’s it. You don’t even get to see Curtis reuniting with his daughter in person or even on the phone, we’re just told she’s okay at the end and because of that, everything is fine and daddy now…..until we are reveal in the last frame and in the credits that it’s totally not.
On one hand, it is admirable for Alejandro González Iñárritu to make a film that refuses to play by the rules and will almost certainly cause review bombings based on the kind of satire and individuals it is mocking. However, he still forgot to make an engaging film in it’s own right and one that works regardless if you look at it as a self-parody, political commentary, or just a good old piece of art in general. Once you known the big reveal of Digger and the point that Iñárritu is trying to get across, the rest of the film just feels…….pointless. When you nothing that is happening on screen is real and the only engaging conflict is resolved off screen, what exactly is there to invest in here other than Tom Cruise trying to become the first actor in history to win an Oscar AND a Razzie at the exact same time?!
Even if you buy into the factor about the movie being about how sometimes we need a comedic distraction to take our mind off of what’s happening in our world today, I don’t think it’s best to get that message across with a play that is about a big global disaster that occurs and the men that are directly responsible for it. Yes, it’s funny to watch great actors give comedically over-the-top bad performances to get the point across but it’s not so much laughing through tears of laughter but laughing because crying would hurt too much. But at least we get to laugh at all….I guess.
Yet again, I can’t help but feel like I’m gonna be nostalgic when these special kind of bad films don’t get made anymore from Warner Bros, or strictly now known as Skydance. Even taken away Ellison’s personal politics, a spectacular bomb such as Digger will only scare away studios from trying a failed experiment like this again and only resort to making your Days of Thunder 2 and Gremlins 2 for the foreseeable future. And unfortunately, you won’t always be able to count on YouTube filmmakers to pop out Iron Lung, Obsession, and Backrooms to say the day for originality in filmmaking.
With more and more mergers coming into fruition, more independent films such as Digger will become rarer and rarer! After acquisitions such as Disney buying Fox and Skydance buying Paramount and Warner Bros, it’s clear that studios are going to put the majority of their focus on pumping out big blockbusters films and less on smaller and more independent films. There will always be one or two of them that will be able to squeeze through the system (We did get Send Help from 21st Century Studios this year after all!) but for the most part, you are likely to get more Minecraft movies than you would films like Sinners and One Battle After Another. Holes will need to be filled to plug in that gape for fresh and original films to still be able to shine, providing that variety of selected films made for theaters that major studios aren’t bothering to invest in anymore. While I’m sure current independent film studios like A24 and Focus Feature will still keep that bright light glowing, I would not expect a massive studio like Skydance to focus on that anytime soon, especially with the insane amount of debt they will be in.
If Digger really does act as the final film to ever get the full Warner Bros logo and the last hoorah from prior WB co-chair heads Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca (who were responsible for the terrific 2025 for WB but a terrible 2026 so far), then at least it would be a fitting it to a legendary run from one of the greatest film studios in the history of cinema! Not because it’s a good movie but it’s probably the last good bad movie we will ever get from them. At least David Zaslav gets his half billion dollar retirement!
