The film is an all-too-fitting whimper of a conclusion to a franchise that never remotely fulfilled its potential.
There’s no shortage of empty gestures throughout the latest episode of the series.
The episode gives the audience exactly what it expects, and absolutely nothing else.
The episode is, above all else, a resolute detailing of the final calm before a spectacular storm and what it means to be human.
The episode has the good sense to respect our familiarity with these characters, and as such it doesn’t beat around the bush.
Complicating Sophie Turner’s character would have allowed the film to feel as if it had more on its mind than pulling the rug out from under us.
The episode offers up a battle between CGI dragons and CGI zombies, to pulpy effect but no moral consequence.
The episode that dials back from the epic confrontations that have filled out the majority of this season.
In war and through violence, Game of Thrones is as clear and compelling as it gets.
Three episodes into this truncated seventh season and Game of Thrones is spiraling toward a preordained place.
The episode manages to set up future conflicts without interrupting its rapid pace.
Even after six seasons, Game of Thrones still doesn’t know what’s most important to its own story.
Death is momentarily thrilling, but the struggles of those who live on are what sustain the series.
The power of the latest episode of Game of Thrones is that it leaves nothing to abstraction.
When Game of Thrones leans on its history, it takes on a resonance rarely found in fantasy.
The show is no longer holding anything back in story or tone, and it’s making this fantasy world feel all too real.
The issue with X-Men: Apocalypse is that Bryan Singer suggests so many possible directions to go in and still chooses the least interesting one.
The episode sees the writers ruthlessly beginning to sew up loose (or underdeveloped) plots.
It’s long been a given on Game of Thrones that “All men must die.” The question, then, is less a matter of whether they will, but how they will.
If there’s one thing the frenetic White Walker-packed climax of “Hardhome” proves, it’s that at the end of the day, talk is cheap.