Digger – Movie Review

TL;DR – While I will champion the brilliant production design, many of the performances, and respect that they went for a big swing here, I must say that I ended up loathing this film with an anger I have never quite experienced before.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Digger looks in shock at the news on his computer screen.

Digger Review Introduction

Well, I don’t think I have ever experienced a film quite like the one we will be exploring today. It makes some of the biggest swings in cinema that I have seen all year, maybe in several years, and yet all it invoked in me was anger. Today, I will unpick the film as well as we can without heading headfirst into the inevitable spoilers. It will not be an easy balance to get right, but I shall try.

So, to set the scene, Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is an oil baron from a long line of oil barons, who has made his considerable fortune from drilling oil in places no one else would, such as a national park in Greenland or along the Alaskan coastline. He has lived a life of luxury, where his wealth and power have insulated him from most things, even the President of the United States Compson (John Goodman) comes to him for advice. But all of that changes one day when the scientist Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) informs him that 1) a chunk of ice the size of Pennsylvania has broken off Greenland, 2) it is entirely his oil mining that caused it, and 3) now the ice sheet Judy is heading right towards Europe where it will cause flooding across the entire coastline.

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Project Hail Mary – Movie Review

TL;DR – Project Hail Mary is everything a sci-fi film should be: bold, evocative, immersive, and wonderous.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Warning – Some scenes contain flashing lights.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

The Hail Mary floating next to a much larger alien ship.

Project Hail Mary Review Introduction –

As I sit down to write this review, I feel like I am floating a touch on air, as if I had just witnessed something glorious to behold. Something I hoped would be good, but which delivered in ways not even I was expecting. It’s a rare film that not only meets expectations but exceeds them.   

So, to set the scene, a man wakes up sealed in a bag, not able to talk, and is accosted by some persistent medical device. He does not know who he is. He does not know where he is. He does not know why there are two dead bodies with him. And you better believe he does not know why he is on a spaceship, or why the star he is looking at is not Sol. There are flashes of memory, of a dying Sun, a Petrova line to Venus, and microbes called Astrophage eating it away. But the man whom the computer says is Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) doesn’t have much time to think about things when the computer alerts him to Blip-A, and he realises he is not the only spaceship out here.     

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