Birds of Prey is fun but flawed
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is DC’s latest course correction to try to shift the dour tone of their franchise into a more enjoyable direction. Thankfully, most traces of the Snyderverse are gone and no one is sending their co-stars used condoms and dead animals, so we’re off to a good start.
Pivoting from Suicide Squad, this film finds Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) fresh off a breakup from the Joker and trying to forge her own way in Gotham. Who is she without “Mr. J” and how will she escape from the throngs of people who want her dead now that she’s no longer under the protection of the Clown Prince of Crime? Harley runs afoul of Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) AKA Black Mask, a wealthy club owner with a penchant for misogyny and slicing people’s faces off, when she helps out young pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco). Roman and his goons, led by Victor Zsazs (Chris Messina) are searching for Cassandra, who just so happens to be in possession of an extremely valuable diamond. Now Harley is joined by former cop Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), singer Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and the mysterious Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to try to defeat Roman and his empire. The plot isn’t anything new, but they do mix it up a bit with non-linear storytelling and a Deadpool-style voiceover from Harley to change it up a bit.
McGregor is clearly having an amazing time villaining out, which immediately makes his scenes entertaining despite a few odd tone shifts that take Roman from campy movie villain to genuinely awful dude. Likewise, the titular Birds of Prey are clearly digging their roles, with Winstead and, of course, Robbie shining the brightest. It’s unfortunate that writer Christina Hodson and director Cathy Yan didn’t spend a little more time on characterization because we would be a lot more invested in this kick-ass girl gang if we got to know them a bit more before things really kick off in the third act.
And that’s kind of the problem with Birds of Prey. Everything’s there, but other than amazing fight choreography and cool, colorful production design, it’s just kind of thin and undercooked. I don’t know the behind the scenes situation or whether the film was meddled with in editing by an anxious studio, but it definitely feels like a few things were switched around and the natural flow of the story was interrupted in a few places. I can’t name three character traits of Black Canary, for example, beyond her being a singer who’s good in a fight. Likewise, they hang a lamp on Montoya’s cliche backstory, which is funny, sure, but doesn’t get us much closer to knowing her as a character. Harley gets the most development, of course, but much of it comes in the form of an animated recap at the beginning, which mostly serves to let you know why you won’t be seeing Jared Leto in this film. Part of me thinks that if they had just chopped a few seconds off each of the many, many fight scenes, we would have had time to care about these characters a bit more and get more invested when the stakes are raised.
When I left the theater, I couldn’t help but think of Cedric the Entertainer’s bit about Luther Vandross from The Original Kings of Comedy. “That boy made all that money and his curl never…never really…never curled all the way over.” Similar to Luther’s infamous curl, Birds of Prey has all the elements from strong performances to a fun, pop sensibility, but it just doesn’t make it all the way to being a great comic book movie. Despite two or three great moments, it’s definitely lacking on substance to go with that all that style.
