Marvel's ‘Ironheart' reviews: Critics love Dominique Thorne — the show she's in, not so much
After a sleepy 2024 when Deadpool and Wolverine were the only ones stirring in the Marvel multiverse, Marvel Studios has kicked back into high gear over the past few months. Captain America: Brave New World led the way in February, followed by Thunderbolts in May. Critics praised the latter, but the former... not so much.
Now, Ironheart is seeking to keep that momentum going on Disney+ as the studio gears up for The Fantastic Four: First Steps at the end of July. Dominique Thorne reprises her Black Panther: Wakanda Forever role as Riri Williams, the Tony Stark acolyte who builds her own suit of armor. Returning home to her native Chicago, Ironheart gets mixed up in some street-level action that ends up acquiring a more magical dimension.
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The first three installments of the six-episode limited series dropped on Disney+ on Thursday, with the final batch set to arrive on July 1. We've seen the full run and can say that the show ventures to some unexpected places and features some unexpected faces. But the creative team makes sure to keep Riri and her personal journey from idealist to pragmatist front and center throughout.
So what do the critics make of Ironheart? The series is currently sitting at 67 percent on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer and 58 on Metracritic pointing to a mixed response. Writing in The New York Times, Mike Hale diplomatically calls Ironheart "a respectable piece of work" that won't "revive anyone's flagging interest" in the MCU shenanigans. "Fan service is prominent," he adds, giving away at least one big-name guest star who appears towards the end of the show.
Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter's Daniel Feinberg doesn't care for the way Ironheart begins or ends, but found elements to praise between those bookends. "Ironheart peaks in its fifth episode with an extended action scene/product placement that I thought was a goofy blast," he writes, adding: "What sets Ironheart apart and makes the middle of the season so enjoyable are the character-based relationships."
One of the lowest scores comes from Kaiya Shunyata over at RogerEbert.com, whose 1.5-star review dismisses the series as "bloated and uneven," and unable to answer a key question: "Who is Riri Williams beyond the suits she builds?"
"We're told she's a genius, " Shunyata continues. "And her admiration for Stark's tech is clear, but the emotional and philosophical 'why' behind her drive to become a hero remains underexplored through most of the series."
The one things most critics can agree on? Thorne rises to the occasion as the lead of the series and the MCU's next version of Tony Stark. (For the record, her predecessor agrees; Robert Downey Jr. FaceTimed with Thorne ahead of the premiere on Tuesday from the Avengers: Doomsday set, telling her: "We're in this love together. I've grown so fond of you, it's bananas.")
Indiewire's Ben Travers kept the love going by singling out Thorne for praise in his largely positive writeup. "Thorne embodies Riri's gradual growth with a potent blend of juvenile bullheadedness and aching vulnerability," he writes. "Her losses sit right under the surface, and even though 'Ironheart' is a lot of fun, it never loses sight of the wayward soul going through a particularly difficult coming-of-age in a particularly difficult world."
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