Closing out the varied Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), “Ironheart” flew under the radar of most with little marketing to be found and only two weeks of airtime releasing three episodes each week.
The show follows Riri Williams’ (Dominique Throne) journey to create something iconic, namely her armor that was kept by the Wakandans following “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”
In order to achieve this, Riri isn’t willing to stop as she teams up with unlikely allies such as Parker Robbins/The Hood (Anthony Ramos) and Joe McGillicuddy/Ezekiel Stane (Alden Ehrenreich).
Riri’s journey also forces her to come to terms with the past trauma of losing her best friend Natalie (Lyric Ross) in a shooting, something that manifests itself in the form of an artificial intelligence in Natalie’s likeness and aptly named N.A.T.A.L.I.E.
However, the show fails to capitalize on this and results in the show never being as iconic as the sparse marketing wanted you to believe the show would be.
Throughout the show, Riri, her friends and her family are all forced to deal with N.A.T.A.L.I.E.’s appearance. Some want the AI destroyed, others want it to stay.
Riri eventually makes up her mind through the course of the show to keep N.A.T.A.L.I.E., only for the ending to devilishly undo all of her character development and maturity.
While that’s the main flaw of the plot, there are also smaller things that slowly stack up to become rather annoying, such as the first three episodes feeling rather slow and the final three episodes randomly throwing in inconveniences or story elements that are unnecessary.
Not to mention a finale post-credit scene that doesn’t really set up anything when looking ahead at Marvel Studios’ upcoming releases.
Despite the problems with the show’s plot, the actors pick up the slack big time.
Thorne was always a standout in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and I’m glad we get more of her in this series as her personality makes her one of the more interesting characters to come from the MCU in recent years.
The same goes for Ramos and Ehrenreich’s performances as they’re some of the best yet more niche actors in the industry, so it’s great to have more of them.
There’s an argument for those two to have been more intimidating in their roles, but for the context within the show, they do their job well.
The best part of “Ironheart” is easily its filmmaking as it prioritizes the practical over digital.
The MCU has been riddled for years with what the internet often considers “CGI slop,” but this show introduced a practical armor suit since the early days of the Infinity Saga.
Most of the sets are also built practically on-location in Chicago, such as the White Castle that Riri often enjoys dining at.
The camera movements also stay on fights for the perfect amount of time where the audience understands what’s happening but doesn’t feel weirded out by it.
Taking things a step further, unique transitions, title cards and camera movements allow for the show to develop its own personality that stands out as one of the best compared to the other MCU shows.
All of this ties in neatly with the show’s music as the original score feels empowering while the needle drops are properly placed and paced, even if they aren’t as memorable as the ones found in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.
“Ironheart” does a lot right and solves many of the problems the MCU has had in recent history, such as prioritizing the practical over digital and having a strong cast.
Unfortunately, the show falls off with the plot pretty badly in the final three episodes with all the episodes having smaller grievances that stack up in the end, effectively handicapping the show from being as iconic as it could’ve been.
Ironheart — ★ ★ ★ ½
Release Date: June 24, 2025
Creator: Chinaka Hodge
Runtime: 50m
Rating: TV-14