April 15, 2011

‘Game of Thrones’ review: HBO delivers thundering psychological intrigue

Posted in: TV

Kit Harington and John Bradley in "Game of Thrones" (Helen Sloan/HBO)

For fans of fantasy, the arrival of HBO’s “Game of Thrones“ is a massive moment of anticipation and anxiety — few films, shows or games will arrive this year with more pent-up interest or potential, but Hollywood has been a heartbreaker before, so there’s a healthy anxiety amid the emotion. I watched the first three episodes and (for me) the show absolutely delivers. Los Angeles Times television critic Mary McNamara was also swept up by the conquests and conspiracies of Westeros. Here’s an excerpt from her review:

The first 10 minutes or so of HBO’s new epic fantasy series “Game of Thrones” are spent celebrating the glories of cable, i.e. bloody violence (beheadings, hacked off body parts, eviscerated guts steaming in the snow) and HBO sex (female semi-frontal nudity, non-missionary position intercourse and unnecessarily graphic sound effects). Unless you are a minor, you should not be deterred by any of this because “Game of Thrones,” written and produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, quickly becomes a great and thundering series of political and psychological intrigue bristling with vivid characters, cross-hatched with tantalizing plotlines and seasoned with a splash of fantasy…

You can read her full review right here.

– Geoff Boucher

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