Marvel’s Ironheart Review – Little Room To Breathe

I honestly didn’t realize that Ironheart was the end of Marvel’s “Phase 5,” and with that being the case…I’m arguably more worried than ever about what Marvel has planned going forward. Sure, I’m excited for Fantastic Four and the upcoming Avengers movies, but Marvel Studios has long since milked its “grace period” by trying to “bounce back,” and as my Marvel’s Ironheart Review will highlight, they keep making the same mistakes while trying to show that they’re “doing something fresh and new.” Except, they’re not, and they’re trying to drive-by shows and hope we don’t care about the hit in quality.

Ironheart is the latest in the LONG line of Disney+ shows, and you have to wonder at times just how much they care about the shows in general, because this one took YEARS to come out, despite Black Panther: Wakanda Forever being the debut of Riri Williams in the MCU. Just as important was that this show races through beat after beat with no time to process or even consider consequences before Riri and her allies or enemies are off to the races doing their next thing. Thus, by the end of this six-episode season, I was left wondering what the point was in many cases.

I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s start at the beginning. Set sometime after Riri’s “abroad studies” in Wakanda, Riri finds herself getting kicked out of M.I.T. because her “antics” are a bit too much. So, she “steals” the suit that she made for them and takes it home to Chicago to try and figure out her next move.

…yeah…you see, that’s the first of MANY problems with this show’s story. The whole thing hinges on the idea that Riri, who, as proven in Wakanda Forever, was a supergenius able to make things that the US government needed but couldn’t do on their own, would get kicked out of school…for budget and “plagiarism” reasons. Instead of, you know, ensuring she stays “within her reach” to try and help them get more money and fame?

It doesn’t help that literally ON THE WAY HOME from her now former school, they lock her out of the AI that she was using and almost kill her! Then, she laments “not having the resources” to be like Tony Stark or others, and thus, the “only method she has” to get money to buy what she wants or needs…is to do crime.

The jump in that logic is so large that it really hurts the show further, and this is all within the first 30 minutes of the series! Parker Rollins, aka The Hood, convinces her with ease to do “three jobs,” and then she’d be richer than ever, and then she could build whatever “iconic” thing she wanted to. And Riri jumps in, full-tilt. The reason that bothers me is that in the comics, Riri didn’t NEED to commit a crime of any kind to build her suit. Well…not really. Like at the beginning of this series, she did ‘skirt the law’ to get items for her first suit, but she did it all on her own.

Yet, here, they make it clear with multiple monologues that Riri’s “only chance of getting recognized” is getting money to buy all the stuff she needs, and then, she goes right to crime. It’s too much, too quick, and that’s a theme of the series.

That goes double when, at the end of the first episode, Riri tries to create an A.I. via her brain scans, and it “accidentally” comes up with a near-perfect replica of her dead best friend Natalie. This creates problems for Riri within the story…and creates problems for the plot as well.

First, and I’m sorry to be blunt here, but N.A.T.A.L.I.E. comes off as SO ANNOYING!!!! In the first two episodes alone, she kept doing things that had me wanting to mute the TV because none of it made sense, and it only built from there. She was an AI by every stretch of the imagination, yet her “personality” kept trying to portray herself as the real Natalie, including ignoring Riri’s commands. Tony Stark made numerous AIs and never had a problem, but Riri makes one, and it suddenly doesn’t act like an A.I. should?

It doesn’t help that they never once explain HOW the A.I. came to be like this, especially when, later, after Nat’s “death,” Riri tries to recreate her and it doesn’t work. Did Marvel seriously do a “power of friendship” thing here with one of the most brilliant supergeniuses they ever created?

Even her death in episode 5 comes off as rushed and forced, because they keep saying “there’s a cost to magic” and then Natalie “dies” and Riri can’t handle it…and…well, I’ll wait for that.

If there was a positive that felt consistent mostly throughout the show, it would be The Hood. Anthony Ramos did a good job of playing Parker Rollins, albeit one that’s also very different from his comic origins in certain respects. I liked how he played things with his “family,” and how he wanted them all to get what they deserved, not caring for their pasts, but for their futures.

I also appreciate how they kept his powers mostly accurate to the comics, like with his bullets being infused with magic, turning invisible, and having it be connected to Dormammu. The problem is that they gave him the cringeworthy backstory by having him be a person with a “bad father” who wanted to be better than him and “greasy rich” to spite him. His “deal” also didn’t make sense, but again…I’ll get to that.

That wasted potential also went toward the “secondary villain” of the season, Ezekiel Stane. He was already annoying when we met him as “Joe,” but then he was revealed to be Stane, and then they did the trope-filled “you create your own villains” by having Riri accidentally screw him over, and then he became a villain and then…stopped…? It’s really confusing. It was also very rushed. In fact, let’s just get to that, shall we?

If I had to state what part of my Marvel’s Ironheart Review got the most deductions, it’s that the show just didn’t let things breathe…at all. I’ve already given you some examples, but why stop there?

Multiple times in multiple episodes, the characters would be having certain conversations and then do a 180 like it was nothing and completely derail the serious intentions that were going on before. Case in point, one time, Nat was trying to convince Riri to stay away from The Hood because of the energy she detected from him. She stopped, though, when Riri allowed her to come along with her to a show. Really? You were JUST trying to get her to save her own life, and now you’re throwing that away for a party?

Then, a few episodes later, Riri is having a panic attack, and Nat goes and gets her “inspiration” in the form of her real-life brother, Vincent, to calm Riri down. They JUST start to talk about how to help Riri, when Nat reveals herself to “her brother” and then Vincent gets ticked and leaves, Nat is mad at Riri for thinking about erasing her, leaving with the suit, and Riri is now all alone…and nothing has been resolved. Really? The “relationships” also get rushed in many respects, to the point that they have laughable lines throughout to try and make it seem like “lots of things have happened by now,” when that’s not true. Case in point, after Riri dooms “Joe” to becoming a bionic weapon, she later “saves” him from The Hood, and she literally says, “Are we friends again?” I shouted loudly, “Are you kidding me?” At what point were they actually friends? Especially since they were both blackmailing each other???

Even in the finale, we get this. Riri beats The Hood, she goes down to talk with “a certain someone,” leaving Parker in agony, by his own words, and then, it’s completely forgotten about…until the end-credits sequence where Parker is fine and asks for help to get to a key MCU location to treat himself. How did we get to that point in time?

The 6-episode season definitely hurt a lot of things, including making plot points more about “convenience” than logic. Stane? He was just a train ride away, because of…reasons (and don’t get me started on the storyline they kept saying about his father that made no sense.) Hey, Riri needs help with some magic? No problem! Her mother is friends with someone who was a sorcerer, and her daughter is ALSO a sorcerer!

Riri is totally going to die because of the villain she killed, and has every justified reason in the book to end her life? Oh, don’t worry, he was never really going to kill her! That would be mean…

The rushed nature of things made the side characters come off as one-note and honestly forgettable. Can you name everyone on Hood’s crew? How much do you remember about Vincent? Or Riri’s mom? Or what was the name of the smart-aleck kid with the wagon? Many of these characters had “moments” that were just…there…and didn’t really add much. Even Riri herself didn’t go through a meaningful character arc due to things ending on a cliffhanger that…that…okay, fine, we’ll do this now!

Yes, they FINALLY brought Mephisto to the MCU…and they did it in…Ironheart…? Really? Look, the idea of Riri mixing magic and machinery was already bad, and against her character in the comics (yes, she did get the ten rings, but those are actually alien tech, believe it or not…), but then they bring HIM into the mix? Oh, and they cast Sasha Baron Cohen as him? Marvel Studios…you should know better.

Plus, he goes after Parker and Riri because of their “needs” and even says Riri is “exceptional,” and yet he’s not appeared to ANY other MCU hero (or villain) before then? That makes no sense. Nor does it make sense that Riri makes that deal with him at the end. That really sealed that she “didn’t have a character arc” because she’s once again running from her problems. Plus, it did the Daredevil Born Again thing of making a cliffhanger to try and get a second season, except Daredevil’s was guaranteed, and this one…isn’t a sure thing for that.

As I wrap up my Marvel’s Ironheart Review, I acknowledge that this one had a lot of bashing in it. So you might be surprised that my score is a bit “high.” That’s because there were good things in it. The VFX was top-notch, and Riri’s suits always looked good, especially in the fight scenes.

The problems came from the plot and characters. There wasn’t enough time to flesh everything out, certain characters didn’t get the growth they needed to be memorable, multiple episodes had the weirdest or dumbest endings, and there were plot holes galore.

Even with all the negative reviews I heard about the show, many of which were clearly biased for terrible reasons, I gave this show an honest shot. There were episodes I liked and thought they could build things off of, but they never did. It came off as another rushed attempt to introduce a key Marvel Comics character, with just as many mixed results as other Disney+ shows.

If this is the end of Phase 5…it’s a very lackluster ending.