The last time Tom Cruise starred in an original movie, not a franchise installment (“Mission: Impossible”) or lega-sequel (“Top Gun: Maverick”), was in 2017, with Doug Liman’s “American Made.” The last time he played a villain was in 2004, in Michael Mann’s “Collateral” — unless you count his heavily made-up turn as shouty movie producer Les Grossman in Ben Stiller’s 2008 comedy “Tropic Thunder.” In fact, Grossman’s probably the closest possible comparison to his latest role, as oil baron Digger Rockwell, in Alejandro González Iñarritu’s “Digger.” Once again, it’s a role that relies on makeup to make the movie star grotesque, and asks Cruise to put his prodigious talents to use in satirizing a truly evil man with a big swinging personality.

The curtain rises on a proscenium, our first clue that everything in “Digger” is artificial, a representation or facsimile of reality — a pantomime. Luxe bedroom window drapes reveal a shimmering pastoral scene: a verdant river valley, dotted with trees, an ideal image of nature’s majesty that’s so beautiful it doesn’t even look real.

Inside this sleeping chamber is Digger Rockwell, tending to his ailing, aged cat (an animatronic, of course). Digger’s a nepo-oilman, continuing the work of his daddy and granddaddy, family heirloom shovel in hand. While he’s ensconced in this mansion with beautiful vistas, his company is drilling and digging for black gold in the icy wilds of Greenland. Apocalyptic news from the outpost penetrates his morning: despite repeated warnings, a disaster has occurred thanks to his aggressive drilling program. An explosion has flattened the operation and sent a massive iceberg nicknamed Judy straight for Western Europe. With rising sea levels and flood waters imminent, Digger’s about to have the blood of millions on his hands.

The freewheeling, wise-lensed camera of longtime Iñarritu collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki captures the chaos that ensues, as Digger’s environmental adviser Dr. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) arrives, as well as the United States President Compson (John Goodman), his Cabinet in tow, to tackle the Judy problem.

The scientist is nebbishy, quivering, an easy pushover; the politicians and generals a bunch of Bible-beating, warmongering misogynists, frothing at the jowls. They propose bombing the dickens out of Judy like so many Doctors Strangelove, while Dr. Ganesh frets that we’re long past any action other than preparedness. Digger ultimately decides to leave Europe’s fate to the wind, and delivers a blistering, blame-ridden speech at a riotous international hearing about the event. “You don’t want me to stop digging!” he accuses the public.

“Digger” is a film about climate change, but it’s not a cautionary tale, rather, it’s an environmental elegy. There’s no call to action other than, “we’re screwed,” unlike that other star-studded climate freakout, Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” which implored viewers to, metaphorically, “look up.” To continue the comparison, the element that “Digger” and “Don’t Look Up” share is an unpleasantly condescending attitude toward their audience, and an insistence on blaming the individual. “Digger” might suggest that it’s indicting the men in charge, but it eventually reveals itself as going after the little guys — us — too. While everyone might be complicit in some way, we’re not all pulling the same strings.

There is another element of the film that suggests a kind of ire toward an audience simply watching disaster unfold, but that specific mechanism doesn’t need to be revealed here. Suffice to say, the filmmakers don’t seem to hold a lot of respect for the people that merely consume content about climate change while simply accepting the reality of it — perhaps like the people who might be paying money to watch “Digger”? This storytelling structure also functions to build sympathy for Cruise’s character, oddly enough.

Perhaps the problem with “Digger” is just too many cooks, and too many ideas, the screenplay attributed to Iñarritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, Sabrina Berman and Jez Butterworth. The film is a hopelessly muddled misfire that doesn’t know where to place blame for a degrading planet, except for on everyone, everywhere, all at once: oil barons, politicians, greenwashing executives represented by Digger’s sister (Sandra Hüller), consumers. Scientists might be our truth tellers, as seen when Dr. Ganesh finally lets loose after an epic booze binge, but they’re ineffectual. So what are we to do?

Pretty much nothing, argues “Digger.” Just sit back, and try to enjoy a satire about the men who ran the planet into the ground while we all stood by. Bleak.

Cruise might be fully committed to this bit, with a wild, wacky, epic performance that is, at times, spellbinding, helmed by a four-time Oscar-winning filmmaker, but in terms of its message, “Digger” doesn’t have any worthwhile wisdom to impart. Cruise is digging for that Oscar win with a performance well outside of his wheelhouse, but in terms of sheer cinematic entertainment, “Digger” is one dry well.

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'DIGGER'

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for pervasive language)

Running time: 2:08

How to watch: In theaters Oct. 2

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