Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, or previously known as Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (for what it’s worth, I kind of liked the mouthful that was the former title) is honestly a pretty good movie. I had a ton of fun watching it, it had some great action, and I thoroughly enjoyed the energy that both Margot Robbie and Ewan McGregor brought to their respective roles. In fact, those two individuals pretty well represent how I ultimately feel about Birds of Prey and DC movies in general: With post-Nolan DC movies, WB will give you either lively, accurate depictions of the characters you love, or they will give you new stories that are a far cry from the comics that supposedly inspired them. Birds of Prey is one of the rare occasions we’ve seen so far that do both pretty well–in most regards.
In terms of acting, everyone does pretty well with the roles they were given: Robbie brings incredible life to Harley Quinn, and she handles the territory of self-sufficiency for a character who mostly has relied on the Joker extremely well. She made me want to see more Harley-solo movies and, for parts of the film, I even forgot that Joker was so “essential” to her character. The woman is ridiculously talented. Ewan McGregor, on the other hand, tackles his role as Black Mask with an energy we’ve never really seen the character have before: McGregor fills his role with eccentricity and charisma that balances the movie’s brutality quite nicely. McGregor offers a rare role in which the added flair and deviations from the source material for a character actually work to the story’s benefit; just as Thanos in Infinity War was much more interesting than his comic book counterpart, so does this iteration of Roman Sionis bring much more life to the role than any appearance in the comics ever did. I’m personally hoping it’s a change that stays in future renditions of the character. Everyone else did fine, but no one really had any big standout performances: Mary Elizabeth Winstead gave an effective performance as the Huntress, but the quirky awkwardness she brought the character didn’t really make a character like Huntress anymore memorable than she had ever been before. Jurnee Smollett-Bell also offered a good Black Canary performance, although it was a bit far from most of the characterization we’ve seen from the character in the past. Rosie Perez was woefully underutilized, and the movie honestly could have not had her character in it and would’ve felt just the same (due in no part to her own talents). Chris Messina played Victor Zsasz–I guess?–though his role as a goon for Sionis rather than the serial killer persona his character usually has fell a little flat. They just really wanted to make his character less interesting I suppose.
Speaking of which, this brings me to Ella Jay Basco, a young actress who did wonderfully in the movie and has my full sympathy for missing out on what should’ve been a badass role. For those who don’t know, Cassandra Cain traditionally has been the child of world-class assassins who went on to become Batgirl while overcoming mutism and discovering that her destiny doesn’t have to be decided by her past. In Birds of Prey, Cassandra Cain is a street kid who steals things, doesn’t really overcome any personal struggle, and ends the movie as a much more successful thief than she was to begin with. Oh, I guess her arc was learning to trust people again? Maybe? It was honestly one of the worst character assassinations I have ever seen, and you can expect another project from me that more fully addresses WB’s very ableist decision to so radically change her character. It would have honestly been quite enjoyable to see a character in this movie overcome a personal challenge other than sticking it to the men in their lives. I am a feminist, and I am all for women overcoming prejudice and mistreatment over their sex, but each arc for the Birds of Prey characters kind of made their identities defined by men all over again. But I guess we can’t have disabilities in our movies yet.
I’m so split on Birds of Prey because, again, it’s a movie I found myself enjoying a lot. Ultimately, I think it’s a lot like 2019’s Joker in that everyone should definitely watch it for themselves and develop their own opinions, because it honestly does not deserver the rough box office numbers that it’s receiving. However, there are some huge questions about the character decisions that WB needs to answer, and I fear no one will really think to ask them: not because people don’t care, but because we’ve come to accept that DC films just don’t care to give us accurate character depictions (except for Wonder Woman and Shazam, for some reason). I believe we are reaching a point with DC where we must start thinking about their films in two different ways: Was it a good action movie, and was it a good comic book movie? I believe there can absolutely be films that qualify for both definitions, but I’m not entirely sold on the idea that Birds of Prey does. Is it as bad as Batman V. Superman (talk about a movie that deserved Birds of Prey-type box office)? Definitely not. But they could have done so much better with much more interesting characters, and for the life of me I can’t think of why WB decided not to. The world is ready for women-driven comic book movies. I guess WB wasn’t ready for female characters who overcome something other than the men that supposedly define them. Do better, DC.
I did find the movie super fun and enjoyable, but I agree. I loved the overt amount of Girl Power (TM) put into the film, but it was very aggressive on the “Omg, men are the WORSE.”
The action was super well done, and I LOVED (and didin’t know he was in it, cause I avoid trailers like the plague) Ewan McGregor’s rendition of Black Mask, and was absolutely tickled by”Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend” (Cause, yah know… Ewan McGregor ).