“Ironheart” (2025) is the fourteenth Disney+ television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with six episodes and a total runtime of close to five hours, so it is possible to watch it in one sitting. You can watch this one without doing homework, but if you like to receive extra credit, watch “Iron Man” (2008) and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022). Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), who aspires to take the iron suit to the next level, returns home to Chicago when she has some problems at MIT, but things get worse when she decides to take a job with the dubious Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), who offers her a quick way to make cash, but will this job get her into the kind of trouble that she cannot handle?
“Ironheart” starts slow, but when it starts to gain momentum, it will surprise you with unexpected twists on well-worn tropes that promise to take the MCU to the next level: magic meets technology. In the tech ring is Riri, and Thorne does no wrong though she must do some heavy lifting to retain the spotlight in an underwritten role. Thorne has never been in a bad movie or delivered anything but a stellar performance, so she carries the emotional weight that “Thunderbolts*” (2025) had the courtesy to spread out among an ensemble cast. The problem with getting older while watching this genre is that you are going to feel protective of the fine featured, slight woman facing outsized challenges even in her massive iron suit.
In the magic corner, Parker is a soft spoken, unassuming head of a team of tech geniuses who shake down major CEOs to land on their payroll. Unlike most series, each of his henchmen are individually memorable thanks to the actors who play them, but it feels as if their talent is not rewarded with enough substantial material or more than a small dose of screentime. It feels as if the MCU is reining in the scene stealers, so they do not need to suddenly deal with the demand of spinoffs, which to me, as a consumer, seems like a win-win. Parker’s street name is The Hood, which refers to an item of clothing that bestows powers on its wearer, but it also seems to have a negative influence and its own agenda, which involves targeting Riri. Ramos is usually a song and dance man with movie appearances in “Hamilton” (2020) and “In the Heights” (2021) or just collecting a paycheck in “Twisters” (2024), but in “Ironheart,” he finally gets to show his acting chops and go shirtless thus no longer hiding his light under a bushel. As Chet would say, “Do it, lady.”
“Ironheart” has one major flaw. I do not read the comics, and I could not put aside my respectability politics while watching even with my critic hat on. I got into MIT and decided to go to another Ivy League school. I saw a lot of people like me fall to the wayside for psychological reasons, lack of funds, medical setbacks, failing or just wanting to be young and free. The way that Riri leaves MIT and returned to Chicago felt highly unrealistic. While numerous brilliant Black people are forced into a life of crime because of lack of opportunities, not lack of morals or smarts, Riri felt too smart to work for Parker and to make many of the decisions that propel the story forward. The writers tended to write Riri as if she is dumb. Her superpower is her brain. Without Thorne in the role, it would be harder to stomach. Also, while Riri acts as if she is poor, her home life seems solidly middle class. Her mother, Ronnie (Anji White), is way too chill over her child’s shenanigans to be poor. Instead of immediately getting embroiled in the criminal tech underworld of Chicago, it felt as if more time should have been spent establishing what she was like before going to MIT and her average Chicago day, but to be fair, it is the point of the story arc and lands.
Overall “Ironheart” works, but it stumbles in the beginning. Instead of a hero battling crime, she is committing it then realizing it is a mistake and fixing it so Parker can remain sympathetic. It often felt as if it was a series written around Parker, not Riri. The two could have come together because they became friends or shared common tech interests with Parker misrepresenting the gravity of his proposals. It felt as if the writers were really committed to Riri being like Parker to heighten their inevitable rupture without Parker losing audience favor. I do not read the comics, but it feels like a departure from the originally conceived hero. Ramos has the body and emotional range to accomplish that without bringing Riri down to his level. It is far more plausible and relatable that anyone could hang out with someone without knowing that they could be dangerous, a far more relatable situation than deciding to work for him.
“Ironheart” knows how to pull that off because it does so with another stellar platonic, intergenerational friendship between the opposite sexes, this time between Riri and Joe (Alden Ehrenreich), a sad sack tech ethicist. Their dynamic is electric, and it felt like a missed opportunity that they did not make a business together to fund her work since they had similar visions of what the iron suit could do. Instead, the series seems obsessed with framing tech geeks as innately criminal, which extends to Joe because of his mysterious past, which is a great backstory. When Joe starts letting his hair down, he becomes a character who could go either way as an ally or a nemesis. Ehrenreich is a chameleon so you have seen him before but will not be able to place him as the titular role in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (2018) and in a pivotal supporting role in “Oppenheimer” (2023). He is the real deal, but if you need a frame of reference, think Jack Quaid energy.
Two scene stealers who needed to appear in more episodes were mother and daughter, Madeline Stanton (Cree Summer from “A Different World” and voice actor extraordinaire) and Zelma (Regan Aliyah). They are fundamental to moving the story forward so even though Natalie (Lyric Ross), Riri’s best friend, was supposed to be Riri’s most important relationship, it felt like a missed opportunity to also have Riri and Zelma team up so it could contrast with Riri’s dynamic with Zelma. While Ross is a great actor, her character was a bit one note when she is not facing trauma, and she did not feel like the dual character that she was supposed to be. Let’s hope that they let her be more consistent in the next season.
“Ironheart” has potential once it stops starting at a contrived point and goes down an organic, fresh path that has huge implications for the MCU. Fortunately, the actors can carry the momentum on their shoulders so the series can find its stride. Hopefully the writers can embrace magic realism without losing the realism, raise Chicago as its own on-screen character and ground the narrative’s emotion without losing the fantastic qualities of being a hero, especially flawed ones. For now, Riri’s highest agenda in the next season should be for her to save herself.
