New Digger ad urges viewers to "decide for yourself" whether it's a ponderous, overinflated mess

It’s a strategy intended to muddy the critical waters, as the ad was released in advance of the film’s review embargo, painting Digger—about Cruise’s irascible and powerful energy mogul almost destroying the world before trying to save it—as a visionary, stylistic tour de force that some people just won’t get, man. 

Sadly for Warners, the people actually paid to determine Digger‘s cinematic virtues are landing rather decisively on the idea that Iñárritu’s film, as The A.V. Club‘s own professional critic put it, “lacks emotional depth, being much more interested in the showmanship of tricks and razzle-dazzle than character development.” Other critics not posting under pseudonyms online have called Digger “a ponderous absurdist lecture,” “a tortuous experience” and a “surreal misfire,” among other unimpressed observations. 

But if there’s one thing this new effort in promotional damage control gets right, it’s that viewers should always make up their own minds—either in the theaters or when Digger ultimately limps its way onto streaming. 

Digger premieres in theaters on October 2.