In 2016, a man named David Ayer directed a feature-length music video with superhero-themed visuals, and released it in theaters as Suicide Squad. The trailer was amazing, the film sucked, and justified backlash ensued. By now, you know the story.
Amidst all the hate lobbed at this lazy superhero film, Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Harley Quinn seemed to remain untouched. Robbie wasn’t blamed for Suicide Squad’s failure, and was seen as a huge bright spot in an otherwise boring and rushed-out film. This spawned an obnoxious number of bad Quinn Halloween costumes – something we should be used to by now, because Harley is here to stay.
Because many audiences longed for Robbie’s Quinn to have her own feature-length film divorced from Ayer’s shit-show, Birds of Prey was born. Like Suicide Squad, the film launched with an impressive trailer, but as the aforementioned film should have taught us by now, trailers mean nothing. Thankfully, Ayer had little if any involvement in this production, and that’s probably what saves it from being completely unwatchable. This project had many, many awful mistakes to correct, and were it not for foreign box office numbers, the future of Quinn’s presence in the DC universe would depend entirely on the strength of this film.
Unfortunately, all this movie really had to do was not be as awful as Suicide Squad, and it would at least double its budget with overseas box office sales. That’s a pretty low bar, and it’s exactly what happened. It isn’t a terrible film, at least not in the same way as its predecessor, but it isn’t a great one either.
Because nobody is seeing this film for its plot, here’s a quick synopsis, with underwhelming spoilers:
1) Harley Quinn is dumped by Joker.
2) Quinn (and every other female character) is sexually harassed throughout.
3) Quinn meets up with several “badass” women to save a young female pickpocket.
4) Quinn and her cohorts defeat Roman, played by Ewan McGregor, who I haven’t bothered to mention until this point because, like most DC villains, he’s boring and easy to forget about.
5) Quinn befriends the young pickpocket
Each character has their own backstory, revealed by Quinn through flashbacks triggered by her obnoxious fourth-wall-breaking narration. None are worthy of comment.
Writing is not the film’s strong suit. The plot is thin, trite, and fully reliant on your tolerance of Robbie’s performance. If you enjoyed watching Suicide Squad for Quinn alone, you’ll probably enjoy this, because it’s certainly more focused on her character. In fact, Robbie narrates at least ¼ of this movie, a distracting decision that really took me out of the film.
The general feeling I get from this movie is, “tired.” Robbie is trying, but it feels as if she’s locked into a contract and being forced to put on some makeup and dance like a clown for the audience, much like her character. As for every other actor (and there are some big names here), they all seem to realize they’re in a superhero film, and it’s quite difficult to tell who’s trying and who isn’t. In spite of the flashbacks used to set up each character, I don’t feel like I know or will remember any of them in the future, because they’re all such bland stereotypes.
Even the fight choreography feels tired. There’s more of it than in Suicide Squad, but it’s all bad, unimpressive martial arts moves with a heavy dose of slow motion to compensate for inadequacy. Every once in a while, Quinn will pull off a really impressive move, but it will be immediately punctuated by yet another generic kick or punch that uses slow-mo to cover up failure.
I can already feel a headache coming on from all the faux-feminist commentators who will come out of the woodwork to defend this movie’s themes. However, the ways in which the film approaches those themes are tired and lazy. The extent of its commentary on gender politics boils down to, “Men suck. Here are some strong women. Aren’t they cool?” There’s nothing complex, challenging, or even interesting about the way Birds of Prey deals with gender inequality, and even though it’s great to have a female director and a primarily-female cast, the potential here is squandered in favor of accessibility and mainstream appeal.
Further highlighting the futility of writing about Birds of Prey is the fact that you probably already know what you think of the movie. If you love Robbie’s Harley Quinn, you’re probably going to enjoy this. If you don’t, this isn’t likely to persuade you. While the film isn’t plagued by the horrid editing and directing found in Suicide Squad, it’s not a noteworthy film by any means. As such, it doesn’t really merit a lengthy review.