The Maid of Mischief is back in action after her break up with the Joker. But now, Harley Quinn is vulnerable and the crime boss Black Mask is after her.
Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, as it is now titled (on release it was Birds of Prey: and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which is just a preposterous title for a movie) does a lot of great things that I liked, but it also just missed the mark on some things. It is a pretty fun movie, and if you're thinking about seeing something this week, it's worth a watch. There's not a lot to spoil with this one so this will be a pretty straightforward review.
Margot Robbie does such a perfect job playing Harley Quinn. She really pours herself into making the character as weird as possible and it works. She was really the only good thing to come out of 2016's atrocious Suicide Squad. If anything, Birds of Prey made me want more of Margot Robbie playing Harley Quinn, and I'm glad she will be back as the character in James Gunn's Suicide Squad reboot. None of my problems with Birds of Prey were with Harley Quinn or Margot Robbie. My issues with this movie, and what I think was holding it back a little bit, was the development of the rest of the characters, namely her partner, Huntress, and the villain, Black Mask. Listen, I love Ewan McGregor. As I said about the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars spin off, "if there's no Ewan, I ain't viewin", but his villain was the weakest part of Birds of Prey. And I don't think it was his fault, the character was just poorly written. He wasn't intimidating and we really just didn't know a thing about him other than he was a club owner/crime boss with a penchant for skinning people's faces off (gross). I never felt like he was a serious threat to Harley or the rest of the Birds of Prey. And villains are the hardest thing for a comic book movie to get right. It's hard to make the stakes seem legitimate. I just wanted some more development to his character to make him have a little depth and some backstory would have been nice. The same goes for the Huntress. She was easily the coolest most bad-a side character in this movie. I really didn't care about Black Canary, or the kid, or the alcoholic cop who is fed up with the bureaucratic system (yawn, played out 1000 times). Huntress was a dope, crossbow wielding, socially awkward assassin who could whip tail, but we just didn't get that much of her.
I think they could have fixed these problems in the first 1/3 of the movie. That's where I struggled the most while watching. In the first third, we got some character development for Black Canary, which was great, but there was weird time jumps and it took too long for Harley to get over Joker. I feel like we spent a good 20 minutes on her emancipation from Mistah J. If they would have dedicated that time to developing the villain and the Huntress, I think that would have made me like this movie more. Birds of Prey was stuck in a bad spot here because the money maker is Margot Robbie as Harley and it's hard to take screen time away from her.
But enough about the bad, let's talk about what this movie got right. After the first 1/3 of the movie we got a lot more Harley Quinn and the movie felt like a lot less of a chore and more exciting. The music is awesome (I'm listening to the soundtrack while I write this). My favorite was the remake of Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." Music can really boost a movie. If the fight scenes had been bad or even just average, this movie would be an absolute stinker. But they were freaking incredible. The fight choreography was amazing. My favorite was the prison fight scene. I loved seeing Harley Quinn swing around a Louisville Slugger again like she was Mike Trout. They used HQ's color pallet so well with the blue and pink smoke coming out of the exploding rubber pellets from her shotgun. It was just so cool looking. I also loved the amusement park fight towards the end of the movie. HQ on roller blades swinging around a big hammer was sick as heck. The best part of this movie was Harley Quinn being obsessed with a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. That's those weird quirky things that Margot does so well with Harley that make her entertaining. And that sandwich looked so delicious. I wanted to eat one immediately after leaving the theater.
Overall, I think this movie is worth a watch if you can make it through the first crummy part and it's one of the better DC Comics movies. Wonder Woman is still the GOAT for them, followed by Aquaman, but Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey is probably right behind those two. DC got a lot right here and they are starting to (hopefully) figure out the formula. I'm excited to see James Gunn's Suicide Squad so that's saying something for them. A little more character development of the Huntress and a lot more for Black Mask would have went a long way here, but I can't fault them because you want Harley Quinn on screen as much as possible.
The early months are usually full of stinkers, so I'm not sure what I'll see next. Fantasy Island is getting hammered by terrible reviews so it may fall into the "so bad it's good" category. I don't care about Sonic at all so my next watch may be The Invisible Man. In the meantime, go see Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading and be sure to subscribe to Drive in Double if you like what you read!
- BH
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