Review of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) by Jordanlayton — 27 Apr 2020

Birds of Prey is a Harley Quinn movie whose every attribute is just as sloppily scrambled as the mind of Harley Quinn.

Along the same Harley-esque lines, despite all odds this film accidentally succeeds in some small ways. This script is a mess of time jumps and irritating/unreliable narration from one Harley Quinn. It fails to invest you in Harley or any of its characters before throwing them into action set piece after action set piece, as is the typical failing of nearly any bad comic book movie. Sometimes, the pacing of such films partially save them from this lack of attachment. Unfortunately Harley Quinns's pacing is grinded to a halt and even rewinded once or twice by its time jumps. The film attempts to excuse this nonsensical mess it makes as a result of scatter-brained Harley narrating the story. Although tying the structure of a film to an unreliable narrator's mental instability is a concept I like in theory (and have liked in films like Memento and Synechdoche, New York), the characters in Birds of Prey lack the substance to pull it off. Quick-fire complaints time. The action was creative but marred by slowmo and fastmo. A pop-filled soundtrack cannot replace the identity a composed score brings to a film. Ewan McGregor's hilarious performance was marred by a needless pervy, Joffrey wannabe scene. The costume designer spent so much time making Harley's costumes flawless that every other character's costumes suffered. Birds of Prey shows a lot of promise for what could have been. It is definitely a step up from Suicide Squad, but not a big one. It's doing well in the box office so we may get another one. Hopefully the next iteration has better direction. Costuming is not something I usually mention in my reviews. This film warrants it. The costume designers seem to have spent so much time focusing on Harley that they nearly forgot about every other character. Why was Huntress wearing a wonky chain across her body? I can tell you it's not from the comics. Why was Detective Montoya wearing a t-shirt that said "I shaved my balls for this" for half the film? For one lame joke from the captain? Why does Black Mask's mask look so cheap? There are character excuses for all of these things. Huntress is trying to be an edgelord. Montoya is a drunk. Black Mask is a super-villain wannabe. These excuses unfortunately don't make these costumes look any less bad.