Film Review #117

Birds of Prey (2020)
Director: Cathy Yan Starring: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Ewan McGregor, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 109 Minutes

Tagline: "Mind Over Mayhem"

Many moviegoers found DC's Suicide Squad to be rather whiffy, myself included, but with one exception - namely, Margot Robbie and her great performance as The Joker's main squeeze, Harley Quinn. Also like me, many were hoping to see more of her, but in a better film; perhaps a solo film where the focus would be (even more) on her. Happily, it didn't take long for just such a film to be announced. It may not have been called Harley Quinn: The Movie but the emphasis was without doubt on the loopy psychiatrist with the dazzling ass this time, although she wouldn't be on her own by any means. As even I know, the 'Birds of Prey' of the title are an all-female group of superheroes but, to my admittedly limited knowledge regarding the comicbook world, they don't count Ms. Quinn among their members, so I was a little confused as to the format this film would take. Birds vs Quinn, perhaps?

The basic theme of the film seems to be the old 'girls rule, boys drool' adage since, regardless of any allegiances, the ladies all seem to be the 'good guys' (or indeed girls) while the men are the 'bad guys'. A majority of the latter are made up of Roman Sionis (McGregor), a.k.a. Black Mask, and his many assorted cronies, but more on those clots later. This is Harley's show despite the title (although the full version is Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, but I guess that's a bit of a mouthful). We catch up with her four years after the events of Suicide Squad (which is pleasantly surprisingly - I half expected this to be an origin story or prequel of some other sort) to find that the Joker has kicked her to the kerb, and unfortunately for her, this newly-single status means trouble.

One obvious consequence is that it might be challenging for her to find another companion, bearing in mind she's as likely to kill them as kiss them (that's assuming she wants one of course), but a bigger problem is that she has pissed off a lot of people over the years and she no longer has the Joker's protection from those who are looking for payback. Can you guess who one of them is? That's right, it's Sionis (I would call him by his supervillain name but he only wears the unscary mask a couple of times in the whole film)! Naturally she has a card up sleeve though, and promises to find and return a special diamond Sionis is looking for in exchange for her safety. A further problem arises, however, when she discovers that the rock is in the process of being digested by Cassandra Cain (Basco), a young pickpocket who now has all of the scum and villainy of Gotham after her.

And on the hunt for both of them is cynical (and busy) Gotham PD detective Renee Montoya (Perez), who is also looking for an assassin who calls herself The Huntress (Winstead), as well as trying to recruit Dinah Lance (Smollett-Bell), a singer in a club owned by Sionis, to be a police informant against him. Happily, and I'm sure not coincidentally, this ties all the main characters together, but while the plot isn't much more complicated than that of Suicide Squad, the world they inhabit is more interesting. The last time we saw Ms. Quinn, despite the monsters and spooky Enchantress, it just felt like they were on the streets of New York or LA or something, but the Gotham depicted here feels much more like the world of a comicbook, from the vibrant, colourful sets/locations to the outlandish characters that inhabit them.

In fact, it seems like the exact sort of place someone like Harley Quinn would call home, and as you might expect, Robbie once again shines as her real life representative. She really is the life of the movie which is kind of a bad point as much as it is good, since she makes everyone else seem dull by comparison. Of course, there's a chance they are dull - that was the problem with Suicide Squad for me. Well, one of the problems anyway, and it's the same here. A number of flashbacks help establish some of them but we still don't get to know them well enough to feel invested in their respective plights. You might say the same about Harley but she's funny and so over the top that it makes her captivating anyway. The only other character that stands out really is Sionis with whom McGregor clearly has a lot of fun.

He is still overshadowed somewhat when he shares the screen with Ms. Quinn though, who unsurprisingly has the lion's share of the action scenes too. My favourite was probably her 'colourful' assault on Gotham's police station, but Robbie is great in all the entertaining fight scenes. A little less impressive was Smollett-Bell as Black Canary who, despite the character's ethnicity changing, looks the part but seems a bit wooden in some of her fight scenes. She still probably fights more convincing than Katie Cassidy's version of the Canary though (chuckle!). Overall it's definitely a better movie than Suicide Squad (which isn't too difficult in all honesty). Like that film, the action is ace and Robbie is superb, and the visual style/depiction of Gotham here is great too, as is the screenplay and McGregor's performance, but a rounded cast of compelling characters still seems a challenge for the DCEU.

RKS Score: 7/10