Rhys Tarling
Tomatometer-approved critic
Rhys Tarling. 25 years old. Recent graduate with a degree in mass comm and writing. I currently freelance write for Screen Rant and write film reviews for Isolated Nation and co-host podcast called Spoiler Nation. I consistently aim for my reviews to be incisive and concise, and imbuing them with a distinct personality -- much like films, no two reviews should feel the same.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The Many Saints of Newark (2021) |
There's thrills to be had in this well produced if slap-dashedly plotted Mafia flick - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Oct 13, 2021
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Candyman (2021) |
The ideas are fascinating. But they lose resonance fast if they are trapped in a preachy mess of a thing. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 09, 2021
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Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) |
While retaining the basic story of its theatrically released sister cut, it's its *violent* opposite in its feeling: decadent, sincere and mythic. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Mar 23, 2021
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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) |
Wonder Woman 1984 is an appalling misfire. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Jan 06, 2021
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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) |
Characters operate on one or two wildly unsophisticated levels: shouting plot details at one another or shouting reheated platitudes at one another. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Dec 24, 2019
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El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) |
If you can't tell a Jesse Pinkman from a Walter White, this film is assuredly not for you - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Oct 17, 2019
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Joker (2019) |
The elements really came together for this unique one-off. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Oct 09, 2019
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Thor: Ragnarok (2017) |
Ragnarok finds new avenues for Thor where it can... And his new funky, jock-y 'tude, in lieu of his usual pompous dignity, is appropriate for a thunder god adventurer who traverses the galaxy in search of epic quests. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Happy Death Day (2017) |
Happy Death Day is a slasher flick that oozes charm, humour and surprisingly little blood and gore. It's like Mean Girls meets Scream meets Groundhog Day. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Logan (2017) |
Logan deals with regret, ageing, and familial love (maladjusted though that family might be) with the nuance and conviction of an arthouse movie from a hungry newcomer who's got something to say. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Live by Night (2016) |
There are morsels of pleasure to be found here and there... No, it's not garbage. It's just a formless affair that feels destined to be relegated to the 2 and a half star pile on Netflix. It's a shame. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Personal Shopper (2016) |
Personal Shopper is an absent-minded average film that nonetheless manages to occasionally jolt the heart exactly because large stretches of it are, putting mildly, sedate. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Manchester by the Sea (2016) |
Even if Manchester were not so technically accomplished and beautifully acted, it would still stand as a unique work, simply because you get the ineffable sense that the director has experienced himself what he's depicting on screen - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Beauty and the Beast (2017) |
If we're being real, there is no reason for this to exist other than to guzzle money. None. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Things to Come (2016) |
Things To Come is bolstered by the terrific Isabelle Huppert, who is apparently chronically incapable of giving a boring performance. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Saban's Power Rangers (2017) |
I'll take a movie that is genuinely interested in its characters and not as much in whatever an army of computer technicians can conjure. Call this one a flawed but good start. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Ghost in the Shell (2017) |
To praise Ghost in the Shell's visuals is not merely to convey its tasteful prettiness; its aesthetic enhances the film's themes and moody atmosphere, so even when Ghost in the Shell is getting slow and stupid, it's ambiently compelling. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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A Monster Calls (2016) |
It's a shame that A Monster Calls never ties together its fantasy and its reality; that its blunt epiphanies feel like predetermined arrivals. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Alien: Covenant (2017) |
Alien: Covenant is undoubtedly uneven, but the good easily outweighs the bad... I suspect that the only inarguable thing about Alien: Covenant is that it looks beautiful. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) |
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is worthy and it's a hoot and a half to boot. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Atomic Blonde (2017) |
It's too damn hard to follow, it's too wrapped up in its own cleverness, it's too damn long. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Justice League (2017) |
It's a pleasurable first-draft of a film that's keeping the DC Universe on life support. Hardly a ringing endorsement, I know. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) |
It was the inventive and slick action sequences; edgy, topical humour; a silly American villain to contrast against the gentlemanly & extraordinarily British Kingsman - instead of meaningfully expanding the emotionality of its predecessor. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Rampage (2018) |
It's completely without a pulse, despite the initial appeal of the Rock and his big mutant ape buddy George fighting other skyscraper sized beasties... This should've been a layup. It's not. It's a big fat expensive miss. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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It's for Your Own Good (2017) |
A sly satirisation of male insecurities and a fresh family comedy all in one. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Mandy (2018) |
Mandy is deadly serious about loss and it conjures the kind of blackly ridiculous, balls-out campy imagery that puts other action/arthouse flicks to shame. Its influences are obvious, but it's a one of a kind. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Stan & Ollie (2018) |
Friendship and comedy make for awkward, hilarious, and ultimately touching bedfellows in Stan and Ollie. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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A Star Is Born (2018) |
It's a splendid Hollywood Romance, sure, but the little textural details - the licks of sweaty hair plastered to shiny, crinkled foreheads - tell of frailty and authenticity. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) |
Bohemian Rhapsody is an expensive cosplay. It is plotted with the passion of a Wikipedia summary article. It hums along inoffensively for 2 hours. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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The Children Act (2017) |
The Children Act is something to see on its cast alone. Fortunately the plot is quite interesting on its own as well. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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The Shape of Water (2017) |
Like the best film monsters, it's difficult not to feel some sympathy for him. Because his spiritual rot born out of toxic masculinity began a long time ago and there's nothing he can do about it. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 30, 2019
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Meal Tickets (2016) |
The film occasionally makes fascinating detours into what's going in the life of Will Stoker as he faces his own artistic dilemmas and demons. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) |
If you're well and truly done with these movies, don't bother checking this one out; it's not exactly a redefinition. It's more of a reprise that sounds better than it has in a long time. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Wonder Woman (2017) |
Gadot - who I'm not yet convinced is a great actor - is one hundred percent perfect in this role, to the extent that it would be a much poorer movie without the zeal and charisma which she brings to the titular Princess of the Amazons. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Get Out (2017) |
Get Out makes imagining such a thing beyond the realm of an intellectual exercise. But by extension this leaves me even more disturbed at the times I tacitly nodded in approval myself. Get Out got under my skin. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Free Fire (2016) |
It's perhaps the only interesting oddity about Free Fire, this unresolved struggle between deathly serious gritty visuals and winking juvenilia. Everything else is competent, diverting enough, but pretty forgettable. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Tower (2016) |
Although Tower is made with consummate skill and artistry that rivals some of the best fictional films of this year, the event it depicts is nothing but the worst nightmare played out in reality. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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I Am Not Your Negro (2016) |
Director Raoul Peck weaves a breathtaking cinematic tapestry. Drawing from old interviews and college lectures, popular movies, blues music, and Baldwin's poetic words, Peck takes us on a tour of history. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) |
I get a little sad when I think what could have been if someone who gave even half a piss about the Transformers was given the creative reigns. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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The Mummy (2017) |
The Mummy is just dull, lifeless - devoid of human spark. There are no genuine conversations; there are no relationships that even halfway try to convince. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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American Made (2017) |
American Made occasionally amuses and provokes a hearty guffaw or two by its end. As a biopic it's insubstantial, but as a Tom Cruise vehicle it's alright.. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) |
The fact that it winds up as empty and cynical as any made-by-a-committee movie is what murders it. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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mother! (2017) |
Mother! begins tolerably if uncomfortably, like an itchy scar. The experience of Mother! is the scar widening and deepening with each act of cruelty and bizarre inhumanity until it's overflowing with ooze. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Breathe (2017) |
Everybody else is a haze of very British window-dressing and they play their parts without fuss or sentimentality. Lest you construe that as a compliment, I'll make it clear that it's a shame, because a little bit of syrup might've spiced things up. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) |
It's the clinical framing of the violence, it's the unexpected bursts of cruel humour during its most wretched moments, that make you wonder whether you're watching a straightforward morality tale or nihilistic art-house film disguised as a morality tale. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Blade Runner 2049 (2017) |
Blade Runner 2049 refines Blade Runner's themes and widens its scope with such immaculate skill and savvy calculation that, ironically, I don't think it could have nearly the same impact as Blade Runner did - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 27, 2019
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Detroit (2017) |
In the end, it comes off as a stylish but lightweight exercise. This story deserved more. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 26, 2019
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Good Time (2017) |
For the most part, you'll either be rolling your eyes or laughing uproariously. Either way, the final scene, which continues as the credits roll, is so unexpectedly gracious and tender that don't be the least bit surprised if a couple of tears spill. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 26, 2019
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) |
Three Billboards humanises vile scumbags without cheaply sanding off their edges or making them strawmen makes it one of the more challenging and rewarding films I've seen in recent memory. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 26, 2019
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Borg vs. McEnroe (2017) |
Danish director Janus Metz helmed Borg McEnroe. He imbues the tennis scenes with idiosyncratic artistry. - Isolated Nation
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| Posted Sep 26, 2019
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