It's fairly safe to say that it this point in time Marvel Studios has seemingly forgotten how to make actually good pieces of media. With the show that i'm going to be talking to you all about today actually being a first for the MCU as it's the first show that will have it's entire run all done up with by next Wednesday and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED first impressions of the show that sees us say goodbye to Phase Five of the MCU with the show in question being called simply just "Ironheart" enjoy.
The plot of this how is sometime after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Riri Williams finds herself being kicked out of school and so she decides to move back home where she then joins up with a gang of thief's in order to get the money that she needs to build her own Iron Man suit but discovers something far more sinister going on with the gangs leader. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all in all honesty not that bad but that's also the problem as the shows plot at least in these first three episodes doesn't seem to be all that good either as it just seems like that it's trying to hard to be a Marvel Netflix without actually understanding what it was that made the plots of those shows work so well in the first place as it tries to be mature and gritty just by having the characters swearing alot of the time and that's it where as the plots of the Netflix Marvel shows dealt with some very mature themes and that was what made them feel grown up and mature with the plot from these first three episodes whilst it can be good as you can see alot of the effort put into creating a decently thought out plot it' still something that does feel like that it's missing that extra special something now this is something that could all change when Disney drops the final three episodes next week but for now this shows plot just isn't as good as it perhaps could have been with the plot of these episodes being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in these episodes is Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams and Lyric Ross as Natalie Washington / N.A.T.A.L.I.E.. Also starring in these episodes is Manny Montana as John King , Matthew Elam as Xavier Washington , Anji White as Ronnie Williams , Jim Rash as Professor Wilkes , Eric André as Stuart Clarke / Rampage , Cree Summer as Madeline Stanton , Sonia Denis as Clown , Shea Couleé as Ulysses Lugman / Slug , Zoe Terakes as Jeri Blood , Shakira Barrera as Roz Blood , Anthony Ramos as Parker Robbins / Hood , Harper Anthony as Landon , LaRoyce Hawkins as Gary Williams , Tanya Freeman as Dean Choi , Chaim Jeraffi as Junkyard Jim , James J.A. Houle as The Voice Of TRVOR , Tristone Dye as Caden , John Anthony Torres as Aiden , Brianna Abruzzo as Braden , Sahara Ale as Harini , Paul Calderón as Arthur Robbins , Alyse Elna Lewis as Young Riri Williams , Kent Churchill as Young Natalie Washington , Zhaleh as Sheila Zarate , David Vaughn as Hunter Mason and Alden Ehrenreich as Joe McGillicuddy.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in these very episodes well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in these very episodes was in all honesty not that bad. As all of this shows actors do indeed turn in some really good performances in all three of these episodes which is something that does make alot of sense as alot of this shows actors are some really good actors in there own right with a few of them being some decently known names as well and even those that aren't that well known like for example Lyric Ross who really hasn't been in anything of note still does hold her own when it comes to acting against her more well known co-stars with even the shows lead Dominique Thorne being alot better then what she really had any right to be which is something that does make alot of sense as she is of course reprising her role from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with these first three episodes being a good example of showing us the audience just what she can do as an actor and while she's not perfect in these three episodes she will get better the more films and TV shows that she does with the best actor in all three of these episodes being Anthony Ramos as Parker Robbins / Hood as he is just such a charismatic person that makes you want to join his little gang of thiefs even tho you know deep down that what your doing is wrong and alot of that does come from the fact that Anthony Ramos is a very charismatic person in his own right with the acting that's in these episodes really being helped by the fact that this show scripts are just so good that all these episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in these very episodes.
Doing the CGI for these episodes is Legacy Effects and the legends and the greats that are currently over at Tippett Studio. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in these very episodes well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in these very episodes was in all honesty not that bad and while yes granted the effects for any of these live action MCU shows will never be as good as the effects that they have in any of the movies the effects that are in these first three episodes were still really good as they looked alot more better then what they had any right to be and while the Iron Man suits have always been CGI since possibly Iron Man 3 maybe Iron Man 2 here the suit that Riri wears does look really good but at the same time tho you can quite clearly tell that the show doesn't have that big of an effects budget as there times in these first three episodes where her suit looks a little bit to fake which is something that does take you out of the episode as it reminds you that your just watching a TV show with the same thing being true for alot of the set extensions as well as they make it quite clear that alot of the set that your seeing either wasn't there on the say or was altered with in the post production process and it makes the whole thing just look cheap and while granted not every single effect in every single movie or TV show is going to look good but there still should have been something in place that masks alot of the bad effects as it just lowers the overall quality of the effects for these first three episodes.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For those of you that are wondering actor Alden Ehrenreich isn't just playing a character called Joe McGillicuddy as his actual characters name is Ezekiel "Zeke" Stane. With the character of course being the son of the main villain from the first Iron Man film this however doesn't mean that you have to watch that movie in order to understand a thing about this show as both he and Riri pretty much go over that entire films third act in the third episode of this show with the character not wanting to be anything like his father as he saw just how mad his father became with Robotics and he even asks Riri if the heist that she and the gang are prepping who goes sideways that the one thing that she borrows from him be traceable back to him with this one aspect of the character being something that stood out as his father would have done anything to get a little bit more fame and a little bit more fortune and yet here we have his son pretty much just saying that the only thing that he wants is a nice quiet life away from that world even tho he has a silo full to the brim with illegal tech something that does make you wonder if the character is going to help out Riri by the time we get to the shows final episode next week as it would make sense for his character to do something like that as he does seem like the kind of character that might be willing to do the right thing and to standup for his friends but given how we see him act in episode two we also know that he's prone to bouts of petty revenge something that could lead him down the path to becoming a supervillain much like his father was which would be a nice bit of irony as he has spent his entire life to be the complete opposite of his father and yet he still very well could end up being exactly like him in the end.
What does seem to be somewhat interesting is the fact that the show does seem to showing Riri coming to terms with not only the loss of her stepfather but also the loss of her best friend as well. With that seemingly coming through in the themes of show which is a good idea but at the same time it's also one that being done to death recently with the way that this show seems to be handling it being somewhat interesting as they have Natalie the best friend character come back as Riri's new AI calling herself N.A.T.A.L.I.E. with her frequently interacting with Riri and her mother Ronnie but at the same time tho none of this shows three episodes take the time needed to explore this theme as the closest we get is in episode 3 where we see Riri start to have a full blown panic attack when she enters her step father garage and starts to relive the night that both he and Natalie got shot and killed and that's really it and that's not enough for a theme that's this complex as everyone goes through grief and it would have been more interesting to see how Riri is processing her grief instead of just having her refuse to talk to her mum about it as that's just sugar coating it whereas if we see how much both of them meant to her and see what her life was like not just the night off but sometime before they got shot and killed then maybe we could get an idea as to how different Riri was back then and see how there death has effected her character either for the better or for the worse but seeing N.A.T.A.L.I.E. freeze up when she sees a gun was interesting as it makes it look like that the AI version of her is carrying alot more trauma from that night then what we're bold told and shown at the exact same time.
Where these episodes do start to somewhat fall apart is in the shows main villain of Parker Robbins as while the character and the actor playing him is indeed very charismatic. The villain himself isn't that well written with there being nothing interesting about him outside of the fact that he has a hood that can make seemingly invisible and that's really it and even then if you follow the clues that they give in these first three episodes it's pretty obvious who the main villain of the show as a whole is going to be as it's obviously going to be Mephisto as even tho we only see him from the back at the end of episode 3 it does look enough like him for that it's obviously going to be him with Parker having struck some sort of deal with him to give him this cape and all of this power but as we don't even get to find out what his scheme is and what his big villain plan is with him basically robbing these big companies just to secure more money for his crew and that's really it and that's not enough to make us the audience hate him as it doesn't tell us anything about him as a character and while we do get to see him kill a few people in episodes two and three that's all we get of him that shows us that he's a bad guy and that's really it and that's something that's very sadly a trend with all of these live action MCU shows where they really just give us the bare minimum of a villainous character and that's it as not one of the main villains apart from Agatha Harkness has been all that memorable as there all just being treated as an afterthought and it's the same thing here and with this show releasing it's final three episodes next week then the show really won't have the time needed to fix his character as we are now officially in the endgame for this show.
Now then these three episodes has / had an exact grad total running time of no longer than fifty three minuets. With episode one being forty minuets and fifty eight seconds and episode two being forty seven minuets and thirty seconds with the third episode being the longest at fifty three minuets and nineteen seconds which to be fair to this show is a perfectly solid set of running times for this show to have with these three episodes really having the right amount of plot there to really cover there respective running times and while it is of course far two early to say if the show does develop it's characters or not what can be said however is that the show doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as it doesn't really develop it's plot all that well with the first three episodes being alot more focused on either mentioning or just straight up insulting Tony Stark then it is in telling an actually good story with the episodes not really explaining things all that well like why does this gang need Riri when they could get quite literally anyone who knows Robotics to work for them as surely that would help with Parker's evil scheme whatever it maybe and why does Riri steal an Iron Man suit from her school when she knows full well that they'll just shut it down which is exactly what happens with all three episodes having moments like this all throughout them and while the episodes aren't as badly done as the trailers made them out to be there not all that well thought out because of the fact that the plot to show isn't being that well developed either but I really will admit that all three episodes have some really pacing to them.
So now then as this an action show that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in these very episodes well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in these very episodes was in all honesty not that bad. Which is something that's also true for pretty much all of these live action MCU shows regardless of the actual quality of the show itself with the same thing also being true for these first three episodes as well as pretty much all three episodes have one action scene in them and to be fair to this show nearly all of them work be it when your seeing The Blood Twins beating people up in episode one or if your seeing Riri doing her thing in the suit and taking out a load of people either way there's something that's in these first three episodes that will please alot of people from an action standpoint with it being quite hard to say just what the best action scene is in all three of these episodes because of the fact that alot of the action that we get in all three episodes are really short and thus when they just get going and start getting good they come to and end which is something that does make it hard to buy into them but if push did come to shove i'd say the best fight scene in these episode is the fight between a suit less Riri Williams and John King as we get to see just how brutal that he is and how much that Riri would have to rely on her street smarts when she's out of the suit as she's so used to fighting in it that she has no idea what to do when that's taken away from her with the rest of this shows action being mostly pretty good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall it's stupid of Disney dropping all six episodes of this show in just two weeks as it makes it look like that Disney is just desperate to get rid of this show and forget about it forever ad given that this show finished filming in 2022 with a few bits of additional filming happening in 2024 that might very well be the case as they've had alot of this show finished and in the can for up to three years now with these three episodes being some pretty decent episodes in their own right in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in these very episodes in this very post and since this is only my first impressions I won't be giving this show a rating however given then unique release schedule for this show I WILL be doing a full blown review of the show as a whole when the rest of the episodes drop next week.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in these very episodes well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in these very episodes from the official marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from these very episodes that I used in this very post being the really great the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from these very episodes with alot of them being better quality then what'd think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on the official Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom wiki page are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.
