There wasn’t much good that came out of 2016’s “Suicide Squad”. The lone shining light was Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. She was a fun, energetic show-stealer and people instantly wanted more. But as “Suicide Squad” (thankfully) vanished from most of our memories, so did thoughts of a sequel. But apparently Robbie (who co-produces this film as well as stars) never gave up on her character and now we get the product of her labors.
“Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” is every bit as loud, brash and chaotic as its trailers teased. It’s clearly an attempt by DC Films/Warner Bros. to tap into the “Deadpool” audience. Much like its Marvel counterpart, “Birds of Prey” is an R-rated romp mixing action with comedy while dropping loads of violent potty-mouthed mayhem. Frankly that seems to be all you need to get some people onboard.
“Birds of Prey” is considered the eighth film in the seemingly rudderless DC Extended Universe. The thought of rewatching “Suicide Squad” to prepare for this film was too depressing (thankfully there’s Wikipedia). Turns out I didn’t need to. Smartly, director Cathy Yan and screenwriter Christina Hodson steer clear of the previous film aside from tossing in an Easter egg or two. The only carryover is the Joker who is never seen but mentioned numerous times.
Storywise, all you need to know is this: Harley Quinn (Robbie) has been kicked to the curb by her once beloved Joker. It gets out that she is no longer under Mr. J’s protection so all of the criminals she has wronged in the past make her a target. High on the list of those who want her dead is manic nightclub owner and mob boss Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor). He’s also known as Black Mask, a great Batman rogue who the movie turns into a ham rather than a menacing villain.
The one thing Roman wants more than Harley’s head is a priceless diamond snatched by a young pickpocket named Cassandra Crain (Ella Jay Basco). Harley agrees to retrieve the diamond in exchange for Roman sparing her life. But there are other characters in the mix including Montoya (Rosie Perez), an underappreciated Gotham police detective, a vigilante named Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who targets mobsters with her crossbow, and a nightclub singer called Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) who possesses an untapped superpower.
And that’s really all there is to the surprisingly bare-bones story. We do get a lot of Tarantino-inspired time jumps and backstory flashbacks coated in non-stop narration. They’re more style than substance and do more to mask the paper-thin plot than add meaningful depth. With her “Bumblebee” script Hodson showed that she can jump into the franchise space and energize it with a smart, fresh perspective. With “Birds of Prey” she seems to be mimicking a formula rather than offering an original take. And the characters suffer as well. Huntress is uneven, Montoya is bland, Cassandra is forgettable, Sionis is one-note. The one I enjoyed most was Canary.
Most disappointing is Harley who is a shell of a main character. She’s still a hellion. She has the attitude. She has the quirky, off-kilter personality. But what is her aim? What does she want? The movie’s title tells us “Emancipation“, but it’s so vaguely portrayed in the movie itself. So that leaves Robbie clinging to the showy external things (which she does really well), doing everything she can to make the character something other than one-dimensional. It’s a valiant effort but she can only do so much when given so little.
But at least we have the action, right? Well sort of. Occasionally it’s simply too much to swallow. Take the scene where Harley tears through what must be the most inept police station in cinema history with a beanbag glitter gun. It’s pretty ridiculous. The scene ends on a better note with Harley showing off her skills with a baseball bat and Yan showing off her eye for stylish, intensely choreographed fight scenes. There is also a terrific sequence near the end when all of the film’s moving parts finally come together.
As a general defender of the DCEU I really wish “Birds of Prey” wasn’t such a mess. In many ways it should be commended as progress. It’s a female-led action-comedy directed by a woman, written by a woman, and essentially about getting on in life without a man. Together those things are an overdue breath of fresh air, but they don’t automatically make for a good movie. Here too much time is spent chasing a hard R rating and too much effort is put into channeling its anarchic style. It’s good for short attention spans and those just there for the bombast. But for the rest of us, Robbie’s hard work can’t save the film or make it the statement of empowerment that it could have been.
VERDICT – 2 STARS
Keith & the Movies 
must be one of the worst flicks ive seen in months.
Not a fan either? I understand. It didn’t do much for me.
i go into detail as to why i hated it so much in my post, if you’d like to read it!
So my instincts of skipping this altogether is wise . I was waiting for your take . I have never liked this character either but the as you well know , I’m not a huge Joker fan and since she is so intertwined with him , her character annoys me. Needless to say i was surprised at the overall positive reviews to be honest .Save my money and go back to see 1917 .
The RT score is a real surprise. So many of the positive reviews even refer to it not being great. I guess it comes down to how much you can go with and how much is too much. I actually like Harley to a degree. Robbie nails the surface stuff, but the character is pretty underneath.
literally about to walk into this movie right now. Hoping to have a good time with it. I’ll see ya on the other side!
Enjoy. Turn your brain off and don’t expect very much. You might make it through it. 😂
Boy, you’ll go see anything…;)
HaHa! Actually this is considered by many to be the first “big” release of the year (sorry Bad Boys). Not convinced it’s worthy of that but….
Not the DCEU’s best – and I do agree with some of your criticisms – but on the whole, I found it enjoyable. (Interestingly enough, I didn’t overly like what I saw of Deadpool.)
I’m not a big Deadpool fan either.
I thought about seeing it this weekend but it’s too cold out here in the ATL as I’m just going to stay home and maybe see it in the next weekend. At least I know it’s not Suicide Squad. Man, that movie sucked ass. David Ayer fucked up when he screamed “FUCK MARVEL” at Comic Con and got his ass kicked for it.
It’s not Suicide Squad for sure. Unfortunately it’s not a very good movie either. It kinda blows what should have been a much better film.
Saving next Thursday for Sonic the Hedgehog 💙
Ouch…
Still gonna see Scoob in May
Aw, I’m sad this isn’t better, I’ll see it on the TV eventually thouhg, for the bombast 🙂
I was hoping for better. It’s great that it’s female led both in front and behind the camera. I just wish it was a better movie. That try too hard to be stylish and R-rated. The story and characters suffer for it.
An all femail ensemble need to do better really if they don’t want the ‘I told you so’s’ macho lot on at them!
Exactly. Sadly some of those dumb-butts are still going to say stupid stuff like that. But when a movie is really good they lose credibility.
I got back from this earlier in the day, so I wrote my review. There’s stuff to like here. There really is. I like the performances, especially Ewan McGregor as Roman and obviously Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. The problem is that the script was all over the place and none of it really came together. It was the same exact problem that I had with Suicide Squad. Lots of great elements, but lackluster execution. This is not a Birds of Prey movie, but they marketed it as such. They should have marketed it as a Harley Quinn movie instead. They even changed the name on posters and ticket sites to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. That’s not going to help a bad movie.
You’re right, there are things to like. I like Ewan’s performance quite a bit but really did like his character. I felt he was one-note and didn’t capture anything from the comic character.
And you’re right, this isn’t really a Birds of Prey movie. Or if it wants to be it doesn’t manage it very well. Mainly because of what you mentioned – lackluster execution.
The choices at the theater for this week were between the Turning, The Rhythm Section, and this. So i thought this would be the better choice. Unfortunately this movie really didn’t work. What is her aim? I too found this pointless. painfully gave it only 1.5 stars.
I understand. That’s not a great choice of movies. What’s so unfortunate is that this could and should have been much better than it is.
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Excellent review, Keith. I caught up and wrote about this last week. I thought it charmed with its direction and performances. However, I could not help but feel that it was merely reactionary. It certainly proves that female led comic book films can be as foul mouthed as their male counterparts. Sadly, that was its only trick.
Right, I guess for me being foul mouthed is such a low bar to reach for. And you could see it working hard to be that kind of movie. I ended up pretty flat on it.
I need to get over and read your piece on it.
I agree with your assessment there. I’m curious to read your other DCEU pieces after reading your review for Birds of Prey.
I think I have reviews for all of them in my archive. I’ve liked most of them (some more than most people) but they aren’t movies I go back to often.
I look forward to reading them.
I simply cannot be bothered with this. #sorrynotsorry
I wish I could say you would be missing out, but sadly this was really disappointing. These characters deserved better.