Birds of Prey
Sometimes I wonder what’s really going on with the people who make DC movies, what goes through their heads… Constant creative conflicts, changing actors due to financial/scheduling/personal disagreements, a large number of cut scenes from movies that apparently change the very dimensions of the films (Snyder’s director’s cut version of “Batman vs Superman” and rumors circulating the internet like it’s a lost gospel), not giving Ben Affleck more opportunity to develop his story with Batman, a weird choice of actor for Flash, God-save-me choice for Joker… And meanwhile Marvel just keeps doing its thing and raking in billions…
However, it’s not the end of the world. Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman have a solid run. Shazam turned out great.
But what do we do with many of the “supporting” heroes and villains? What do we do with Harley?
Margot Robbie (at least in my opinion) brought freshment to the DC film world with her version of Harley Quinn, which in many ways resembles the cartoon/comic version. The combination of sex appeal, mischievous behavior, absurd comments and an irritating voice (“My Mr. J, my puddin'”) created a hilarious character that was very popular with (especially internet) audiences, so much so that various interesting internet memes appeared.
“Suicide Squad” was a pretty “meh” film, but Harley was one of the film’s bright spots. She was so popular with audiences that they thought she should get (more or less) her own film. We know that “Joker” brilliantly showed that a film can work without a superhero (Batman), maybe Harley can too. Well, she certainly can’t do it completely alone, she’ll need help.
Let’s see what “Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn” (and I’m not going to write this mile-long title throughout the review, so we’re sticking with “Birds of Prey”) says about Harley’s adventures and whether they lived up to expectations.
Harley and Joker have officially broken up! Actually, he dumped her and kicked her out of his lair. And Harley did what every girl does when she ends a romantic adventure with a psychopath who wants to spread terror through the city. She found a new place, destroyed a building (“Ace Chemicals”) as a “symbolic” marking that the relationship is over, fixed her hair and went partying and drinking with girlfriends at clubs run by the biggest scum in Gotham City… and maybe kept quiet for a while that she’d broken up with Joker (as his girlfriend, she enjoyed a kind of “immunity” that allowed her to do all kinds of stupid things… because who wants to mess with a psychopath like Joker). Though, the news soon spread.
In other news, Gotham police detective (GCPD), Renee Montoya is investigating a mysterious crossbow-wielding vigilante who’s spreading death among mobsters, and along the way learns about Harley Quinn’s romantic shipwreck… whom she runs into in the city at the moment when Harley’s trying to eat a delicious sandwich.
The situation for our silly Harley got quite complicated. Now everyone’s out to take her head off, because she no longer has Joker’s protection. Although she managed to escape the police, she was caught by the men of one of the crime lords, Roman Sionis (Black Mask). Roman no longer needs to tolerate Harley (with everything she did to him, anyone would probably want to take her head off, including Batman :D) and thinks it’s perfectly fine to remove her from, well, existence. However, he decided to give Harley a chance (after her begging) to stay alive if she finds the little girl (Cassandra “Cass” Cain) who stole a diamond (which contains data on the bank accounts of the Bertinelli mafia family, which was massacred many years ago) and who’s currently in the police station. Roman wouldn’t be scum if he didn’t immediately offer a reward to other mercenaries to bring him Cassandra.
Harley manages to snatch Cassandra from the police, and now they need to get somewhere safe. However, after initial distrust, the two of them bonded. But the job must be done, and Harley arranges with Sionis to hand over the girl at an abandoned amusement park.
What will happen when Harley Quinn, Renee Montoya, Dinah Lance, the mysterious killer with a crossbow and Cassandra all end up in the same place and realize that Roman Sionis has decided to kill them all (and how it will all end), you’ll find out if you watch “Birds of Prey.” 🙂
You know, I was quite torn about whether to review this film (I even left the final decision to blog readers/Instagram voting). The film had potential, but everything, in the end, somehow turned out lukewarm and slapped together haphazardly and I’m afraid this film will quickly fall into oblivion. But it did have some bright spots…
…but the film’s plot isn’t one of those spots. Simply put, everything’s somehow thrown together, in an attempt to squeeze as many characters as possible into the story…
…but the acting improved things quite a bit, which is both good and bad news. Margot Robbie has shown in her films that, besides beauty, she also possesses great acting talent (though it seems to me that in a couple of newer films she undeservedly got little opportunity to show it). Her Harley is silly, crazy, frisky, sarcastic, intelligent, goofy, sexy and solidly beats the crap out of anyone who crosses her mind, and that with a dose of twisted humor, and now it’s hard to imagine who else could take Harley Quinn’s baseball bat from Margot Robbie. I have to admit that at first I was slightly confused by the version of the villain Black Mask in this film (somehow not quite how I experienced him from comics or animated films), but the brilliant Ewan McGregor gave us a more vulnerable, more insecure and less calculated side of this villain’s personality… though no less psychopathic and sadistic split personality than in the original version, as well as an interesting transformation when he puts on the mask. 😀 All of this makes this villain one of the more unique ones in the DC film world. Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya was neither here nor there for me, to be honest. The bad news is that Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina), “Crossbow” (Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a very likeable and cool actress to me, who also had her episode in this series), Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Bruce the hyena didn’t get much more screen time and more developed stories. I have no complaints about the young actress and her role, but that’s not the classic Cassandra Cain and has nothing to do with anything familiar.
The visual style is also appealing, as is the good musical score. The action scenes are hilarious, and the humor is silly.
Stories about aggressive feminism and the like fall flat for this film. I’m quite tolerant (not to say oblivious :D) when it comes to freedom of choice. Of course, if I notice something being pushed too aggressively in a film, I try to be as objective as possible in highlighting it. And when it comes to feminism and “Birds of Prey,” I don’t think it’s that noticeable here. Harley did mention that without her Joker couldn’t do much (which maybe isn’t far from the truth, considering what a psychopath Joker is :D), Montoya is surrounded by incompetent (male) colleagues (it happens, that’s life), and the villains are the worst male scum (they are villains in every way after all), but I think the bigger emphasis in the film is on some kind of “sisterhood” and the connection of people (women) from different backgrounds.
The fact is that this film had a smaller budget than other films from this “superhero genre.” Money is important, but so is what you do with it. And it seems to me that this film didn’t use its full potential. I somehow got the impression that this would have turned out better if it had been done in the form of some (Netflix) series.
We’ll see more of Margot and her Harley Quinn, there’s no doubt about that. I just hope they’ll invest a bit more money in those projects, and pay a bit more attention to the film’s plots… especially if they plan to throw in multiple main characters at once.
All in all, “Birds of Prey” is a decent (but one that quickly fades from your head) film, but far from what was expected. However, Harley is a big plus and she “saved” the film. 🙂
And you, dear reader, what do you think about Harley’s adventures? 🙂
IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic
Trailer
Release Date: 2020
Format: Film
Duration: 109 minutes
