So I checked out Birds of Prey, the Warner Bros. comic film directed by Cathy Yan, on HBO Max having missed the theatrical run, and I generally think this movie got a bum deal because it was pretty fun. When I reviewed 2016’s Suicide Squad, I was bugged by how on-the-nose it was in pointing out how bad its protagonists were despite them not showing it to the audience. DC over the years has been transitioning Harley Quinn into more of a “tweener” role than a clear-cut villain, so this story is in that same vein, but here I felt it was executed much better than the prior film.
Her newest adventure has her finally getting fed up with the Joker’s controlling ways, breaking up with him and striking out on her own, punctuating this in her own Harley fashion (namely, driving a truck into her former patient’s Ajax Chemical factory). This earns her the unwanted attention of Gotham PD Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), who’s investigating the feared crime lord Roman “Black Mask” Sionis (Ewan McGregor, who’s really gobbling up the scenery with hot sauce) and his quest for a rare diamond that holds clues to a massive fortune.
Unfortunately, just because Harley’s no longer affiliated with the clown prince of crime, that doesn’t mean the various people her and Joker pissed off aren’t hunting her down with furious vengeance. Through a mix-up during a chase that sees her beloved breakfast sandwich ruined (at this point, I’m starting to think directors put these indulgent food scenes in their films just so Binging With Babish can make a video about them), Harley gets roped into the hunt for the diamond.
When it’s stolen by the young thief Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), it’s up to Harley along with Montoya, the lounge singer Dinah “Black Canary” Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and “The Huntress” (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to protect her from Black Mask and his army.
One can tell this was a labor of love for Margot Robbie, who’s grown attached to the Harley Quinn character in a similar fashion that Ryan Reynolds with Deadpool and Chadwick Boseman with Black Panther seemed to with their comic book roles. And though she’s still as over-the-top as she was in Suicide Squad, the other BoPs are interesting supporting cast members and luckily balance her out. Perez as Montoya notably does a nice job as the film’s most moral center, swimming upstream against the corruption in Gotham.
A glaring hiccup in the movie is how unreliable Harley’s narration can get. I understand she warned the audience at the beginning that she’ll tell her story how she damn well pleases, and it makes sense her recollections would be spotty considering her mental state. But her tendency to backtrack over important details interrupts the flow of the movie a lot, which is weird because it’s a fairly simple plot- a bad guy wants a Macguffin, a girl’s caught in the mix and heroes band up to save the day.
Which is another thing, a lot of the appeal of this movie lies in the camaraderie between Harley and the Birds. The big get-together happens late into the film, but BoP did a better job than Suicide Squad in getting me to care about the cast than its lame barroom speech.
Their backstories are covered over briefly but they build to a good sense of catharsis given what they’ve gone through, them rising to the occasion and showing agency, and how willing they are to look out for one another. And this is all done while still making just about every character morally questionable to some degree, with plenty of blood and profanity on display to accentuate that.
Much was made in the press about whether or not the R-rating hurt its box office potential, leading to a bunch of articles declaring the movie a “flop” and a failure because of the $30 million opening, which I felt was an unfortunate burden to tack onto its marketing in the press. With all the talk of whether superheroes (or supervillains, in this case) should be geared towards adults or not, my stance has always been “once in a while, sure, but not exclusively”.
I can’t pretend the Harley IP doesn’t appeal to kids, it certainly does, and the tone of the movie does feel very “kiddish” sometimes with its jokes and bright color palette, despite the graphic content (it’s a weird contrast to be sure). But I think this movie still had a ton of unneeded expectations weighed on it. It isn’t setting out to be a grand Justice League-level spectacle- this is a goofy, frequently exciting mid-level girlfight flick that one can sit back and eat popcorn over a lazy weekend.
Maybe Birds of Prey didn’t do the exact kind of business WB wanted, but it’s clearly found an audience and it did give me reasons to help understand why. All in all I’d say it’s on the better end of the DC film output so far- not as great as Shazam or Wonder Woman 1, but miles ahead of Batman vs. Superman IMO. If you’ve caught it on HBO Max, let us know your thoughts at @Official_FAN on Twitter and share your take on it!