By Brad Munson (The Dark Multiverse of Stephen King)
The newest addition to the DC Cinematic Universe is a relentlessly madcap, ultra-violent super-dark, semi-humorous take on super-hero adventure and heroism in general. Some will love it. Some will walk away disappointed.
Make no mistake: Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is going to make a ton of money, and in many ways it deserves to. This whacky whirlwind visit to Batman’s Gotham (with Batman barely mentioned and the Joker never entirely seen) is extremely well-made. The slightly hallucinatory production design is great; the action sequences, editing, and especially the sound track are terrific, and the acting–over-the-top though it may be–is expert, especially from Margot Robbie is Harley and a nearly unrecognizable Ewan McGregor as Black Mask (This is the guy from Doctor Sleep? And Star Wars? And Fargo? Really?)
But…Birds is going to hit every viewer a little differently, depending–maybe–on their generation, their expectations, and their tolerance for the whole superhero genre. That was certainly the case in the half-dozen viewers from SeFija! who saw a pre-release screening.
The story, underneath it all, is actually pretty simple: Harley Quinn breaks up with the the Joker, the super-villain and Batman arch-nemesis who made her crazy-evil, then immediately gets involved in a wild series of chases and fist fights to acquire a very important diamond that’s been found and lost and found again, all so she can be free of her dark past and start a new, equally nutty chapter in her life. But how the story is told, and all the new-to-most characters that are introduced along the way, struck our little movie squad–ranging in age and comics tolerance from early twenties and newbies to sixties and jaded as hell–as everything from delightful to repellant to even a tad bit boring.
The bam-bam-bam editing, the twisty camera angles, and the roller-coaster storytelling on top of this ‘simple’ tale–doubling back to re-tell sections of the adventure, breaking off to give backgrounders on various new characters, even taking a short break for a disturbing Marilyn Monroe-inspired dance dumber–can leave you breathless and/or annoyed. For some of us, it had the gleeful abandon of a Guy Ritchie movie, like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch; for others, it was just puzzling and unnecessary. If you were a comics fan going in, it was fun to see these new versions of familiar characters like The Huntress, Black Canary, and Black Mask. We were the ones who reveled in the ‘secret’ knowledge that Detective Montoya might eventually become the masked detective called The Question (if she follows various comics continuities), and that another version of the rebellious young pickpocket Cassandra Cain is destined to become one of Batman’s protégés, a nearly silent super-stealthy bat-suited superhero called Orphan. But for the non-comics-geek, there are a lot of characters you’ve never heard of before ramming in and out of Birds of Prey, each with their own backstory by the last act, the whole thing can look pretty crowded and chaotic.
(L-r) MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD as Huntress and ROSIE PEREZ as Renee Montoya.
And it’s undeniable: there are very few likable characters in this movie. All the women are damaged; all the men are brutal, if not just plain ol’ evil. And there are a few truly disturbing scenes of violence against women–by men who eventually get what’s coming to them, but still. Meanwhile, you really want to root for the eternally optimistic of obviously insane Harley Quinn, but it’s hard when she starts her story by feeding a rude man to her hyena (yes, really) and goes on to kill a countless number of people (men!) using everything from a lethal version of a glitter gun to a baseball bat.
(L-r) ROSIE PEREZ as Renee Montoya, MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD as Huntress, MARGOT ROBBIE as Harley Quinn, ELLA JAY BASCO as Cassandra Cain and JURNEE SMOLLETT-BELL as Black Canary.
For some of our movie-going group, the jumpy storytelling, deep backstories, and unpleasant characterizations left them cold. It was needlessly complicated; it even dragged in places. They just didn’t care about all that stuff. For them, Birds was good enough, but a bit of a disappointment. For others–especially the comics fans and viewers in their 20’s–they got pretty much what they expected: a dark and violent adventure, more reminiscent of Deadpool or Kick-Ass than their favorite Batman movies (whichever they preferred; take your pick). And they (me included) had no trouble falling in love with the entirely homicidal nutcase Harley. She’s just bein’ her.
It’s unlikely that Birds of Prey will show up in anybody’s Top Five Best Super-Hero Movies of the Decade, but it’s not the mess that Suicide Squad, the movie that introduced Robbie’s Harley to the world, was. And it’s certainly not the turgid train wreck of Justice League. Where it will go from here in terms of its own franchise for the Birds or Harley, and how (or if) it will fit into the upcoming Pattison/Kravitz Batman/Catwoman continuity remains to be seen. Still, almost anybody who goes into Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn won’t hate it. It’s not bad, or so says the SeFija! squad. On the other hand, some of the viewer won’t leave feeling entirely satisfied either.
Birds of Prey in theaters February 7. Starring Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Ella Jay Basco, and directed by Cathy Yan.
Photos: ©2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
