Iron Fist Season 1 Review

The Last Marvel Defender has finally had his own standalone show with Iron Fist, a story that follows a young boy once lost in a plane crash coming home to New York. The show takes place fifteen years after this crash as Danny Rand (Finn Jones) attempts to find his place in the city and reclaim the company that belongs to him. People obviously take him as some crazy individual and that kicks off the initial events as we learn of the new characters involved with this series. It's a completely different look at New York as Danny is on the business side of things and one well trained with specific martial arts. This is in contrast to the rugged heroes we're used to which are made special whereas Danny has been gifted his special ability.

The strength of inner Chi guides him to be the Iron Fist and basically means his fist glows orange occasionally. It's honestly a hilarious ability and somewhat hard to take seriously when they name drop it so many times in the show. This may make the Iron Fist sound weak, but he's an intensely strong disciplined fighter with a fist that has incredible strength to it among other abilities. They also seemed to really retread familiar waters with the story structure and not making it unique enough of an experience. The flashbacks also did not help in this one feeling awkward and perhaps poorly placed. The story structure was horrible jumping around with little sense to any of it and it just didn't feel that interesting. This is odd as I've absolutely loved all the previously Marvel Netflix shows and it's disappointing mostly.



Another huge issue I had with Iron Fist was with the fight scenes which lacked the excitement and grit of the other Marvel characters. There was no sense of death or even hardship from fights and while the setups were cool, the fights were poorly shot. I love the idea of the show with its different sort of martial arts focus, but it was horribly displayed. The narrative was also just weak here making little sense and at times I was curious why certain people had their motives. The acting was solid with some really interesting characters that I liked, but they weren't used to their full potential. Finn Jones and his main counterpart Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) were particularly great with Claire (Rosario Dawson) which acts as The Defenders' Nick Fury perhaps being too present. Along with some fight scenes not being great, the general look of the show missed that past magic and there was some bad CGI moments.

The Conclusion

I like the idea of Iron Fist and its characters, but something didn't click with this first season. I want to see more of them and maybe once they deal with The Hand to some degree in The Defenders this group can have a better season. The supporting group was alright though somewhat underdeveloped with odd motives that didn't help anything. They also need to strike a stronger balance between work and fighting. With Daredevil he was always at work despite beat up or late and they found a proper balance there. Iron Fist had a strong start as a character and cast with neat ideas, but they just didn't come together.

Review for Iron Fist at Home with Streamed Viewing

Rating Overall: 4.0