Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
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Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (more)
Directed by:
Cathy YanScreenplay:
Christina HodsonCinematography:
Matthew LibatiqueComposer:
Daniel PembertonCast:
Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett, Ewan McGregor, Ella Jay Basco, Chris Messina, Daniel Bernhardt, Charlene Amoia (more)VOD (3)
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You ever hear the one about the cop, the songbird, the psycho and the mafia princess? Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a twisted tale told by Harley herself, as only Harley can tell it. When Gotham’s most nefariously narcissistic villain, Roman Sionis, and his zealous right-hand, Zsasz, put a target on a young girl named Cass, the city is turned upside down looking for her. Harley, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya’s paths collide, and the unlikely foursome have no choice but to team up to take Roman down. (Warner Bros. US)
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Reviews (21)
I wanted to write that everything is bad, but that wouldn’t be true, because the overall impression is multiplied by the fact that a lot of what was wrong didn't have to be. The choreography is imaginative, playful and built on honest stunt action, but doesn’t have any zest. As 1980s glitter-pop wannabe punk stylings go, it's an inconsistent "ten minutes of nothing and then two minutes of 110%", which goes hand in hand with an incongruously alternating overdriven tone and an almost serious attitude. On paper, the narrative is fast-paced, full of flashbacks, just like Ritchie, but that may have been the case on paper, because when translated into practice the effect was lost. And then there’s the casting… It's no match for the cultishly bad casting of Schumacher's Batman, but not a single role is well-cast, including Margot Robbie. Harley here is more over-the-top, ditzy and stylised into a Deadpool/Gwenpool concoction. It doesn't have much in common with the more restrained version of the same character from Suicide Squad (where she played second fiddle) and Margot doesn't deliver it. At the same time, scenes like the "egg sandwich" could be sold in a funny way (Deadpool and the animated Harley Quinn are founded on such scenes). Ditto the two villains and others; led by the casting of the nearly 60-year-old grandmotherly Rosie Perez in a gritty "written for Michelle Rodriguez, but she didn't exactly have time" role – the casting flop of the decade. Then there’s the artlessly disguised in action through constant back-taking with a wig. That would be frowned upon in an amateur fan film, let alone a blockbuster production. And no, it's not a disruptive element, plus, with the right casting, the character could have worked. And so it is with everything else. It could have worked, but it doesn’t. Unfortunately, not to the point where it would be unintentionally funny. So it's just the essence of boring dullness.
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If there's anyone in the American film industry who is irresistible, it's Margot. I don't care if Harley Quinn has a strong enough story or personality to pull off her own movie, because Margot Robbie does. And her Harley is damn watchable, cool enough, and cute to boot. Plus, she's not exactly on her own. In comic book movies, it's always the same script anyway, good guys versus bad guys, backstory, big final brawl, boom, ending, promise of a sequel. Whether any comes about in this case, I have no idea. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, I'm happy with the cast, the editing was great, the music suited me. They’re weaker ones, but there are five of them. Stars, I mean.
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I really don’t know if Birds of Prey wants to be a "sharp, even controversial film” or anything else, but I enjoyed it for what it really is – a fresh, uncomplicated, deliberately trashy-in-places, playfully over-the-top and infantile post-breakup action comedy with an intentionally chaotic narrative that, like the main protagonist, gradually settles down and becomes more focused. Girl power is not so obviously on display as in Wonder Woman or certain Marvel movies (e.g. the painfully forced and TERRIBLY unnecessary “don’t say that name” scene in Avengers: Endgame). Feminism is a natural part of the fictional world. All of the men are malicious betrayers or dangerous, violent swine (which, however, does not mean that the heroines are saintly, not even a little – they are imperfect, but they don’t care) and we want them to die a horrible death. This film is based more on female friendship than on the antagonism between Harley Quinn and Sionis, which in the end is rather just a MacGuffin contributing to “female bonding”, an obstacle preventing the protagonist from enjoying an egg sandwich or watching Tweety in peace. This is where Birds of Prey differs from standard comics-based films, where a villain must be eliminated in order for the world to be saved. I surely would not mind if there was greater anarchy and more derisive mockery of all of the macho comic-book universes in which women serve merely as sidekicks, baddies and ornaments in guy adventures, but Birds of Prey is too radically feminist (er, lol) for some viewers, so for now it’s perhaps not possible to expect more from a major-studio genre film. 75%
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After all of those painfully generic, would-be serious comic-book movies abounding with pathos and artificial CGI sequences, we finally have a properly entertaining flick from the superhero universe. Let’s just admit that only Nolan has managed to deal with superheroes in a truly complex way and everyone else is merely pretending to bring depth to the genre. And that clownish Deadpool, with its insipid “bloody R-rating” mythos is not an alternative, but just the other side of the same coin. Fortunately, salvation has come in the form of Harley Quinn’s solo movie, which is everything that comic books have traditionally been, without being what comic-book movies have been for the past twenty years. Here we again finally have a trashy, colourful and superficial farce with crackpot characters in a maniacal world. Furthermore, after those decades of CGI blockbusters (especially comic-book flicks) pushing action movies out of cinemas, Birds of Prey marks the return of proper kinetic and physical action spectacle (thus capping the trend started by the Mission: Impossible and John Wick franchises). Whereas other comic-book blockbusters have completely superficial action that is never memorable, Birds of Prey offers up several imaginatively designed and magnificently executed sequences with astonishing choreography by Chad Stahelski – the police station sequence is the highlight, but the carnival fun-house passage at the end is also great. This film does not entirely refrain from indulging in some tediously shallow CGI scenes, though fortunately only at the level of simulated exteriors. On the other hand, the film’s main virtue consists in the good, classic analogue work done by the people in the make-up, costume, set and action-choreography departments, as well as in the casting, of course. I very much hope that the incel whiners don’t win and that Harley Quinn gets another movie, because this is exactly what the contemporary bland production of comic-book flicks needs: A cheeky girl who isn’t saving the world in another dull spectacle, but just saving her own ass in a playfully trashy and boldly colourful fairy tale, a girl who knows how to swing a baseball bat and fire a grenade launcher, and who mainly loves an egg cheese sandwich (which, incidentally, is an essential defining moment for the character, as well as a great contribution to the home recipe book).
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Birds of Prey turned out tragically financially, and the movie itself is nothing to write home about. I may be one of the few who liked Suicide Squad, but this spin off with Harley Quinn was too feminist and girly for me and it irritated me for almost the entire running time. There's a difference between listening to the dialogue of a group of tough mercenaries versus a group of women, where the humor doesn't come across as funny at all, at times I was almost embarrassed. What elevates the film to the average is the nice color comic book visuals and decent over-the-top action, but I hardly noticed any violence apart from a few nice fractures. Compared to Deadpool, where guts and brains were flying in all directions, this was very tame, and Ewan McGregor as the villain overacted too much for my taste. Somewhere around 20 minutes before the end I was wishing for the ending and that's always a bad sign. It's okay for one viewing thanks to Harley Quinn and the decent action, but there wasn’t anything else I enjoyed. PS: Jurnee Smollett-Bell in gold leggings, however, was not to be missed! 5/10.
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