Review of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) by Player2-Water — 15 May 2020

E-Value: 8.

Acting: 8.

Plot: 7.

The superhero movies of the year 2020 kicks off with the eighth instalment of DC Extended Universe, which features the return of Harley Quinn, who was last seen in 2016’s Suicide Squad, and the official debut of Black Canary, Huntress, Renee Montoya and Cassandra Cain in the big screen.

Taking place after the events of Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn (Robbie) officially declare her break up with the Joker publicly by destroying Ace Chemical factory using an oil tanker and throw away the necklace given to her from him. Her reckless actions have caused an open season on her head by many criminals in Gotham City who wants revenge on her now that they don’t have to fear retaliation from Joker himself.

Meanwhile, Roman Sionis/Black Mask (McGregor) sends Victor Zsasz and Dinah Lance/Black Canary to retrieve a valuable diamond which originally belong to a now extinct Mafia crime family. They successfully got the diamond without problem until a young street thief named Cassandra Cain (Basco) stole the diamond from Zsasz but she got arrested by the police soon after when she is caught for stealing other items.

Not happy with the diamond being stolen and the young thief now in police custody, Black Mask captures Harley and force her to retrieve the diamond from Cassandra in exchange for immunity from criminals wanting revenge on her. Black Canary secretly inform Detective Renee Montoya, who have been chasing after Black Mask for months. A mysterious assassin named Helena Bertinelli/Huntress, who have been killing criminals that is responsible for her family massacre, joins the party and everyone will soon cross paths with each other.

When this movie was first announced, I was expecting the movie will end up being bad just like Suicide Squad. However, I am happy to report that Birds of Prey is not bad and quite good. The movie is just like a combination of Deadpool and John Wick movies. Full of fun, violence and dark humours. The story is very much simple to follow and not too complicated. Christina Hodson have done a great job with her writing in this movie much like how she has done with 2018’s Bumblebee. Cathy Yan have proved herself to be a good director and yet this is her second feature film in her career. Not bad for her. She has done an outstanding job.

The performance from the casts are simply amazing. Margot Robbie and Ewan McGregor played their roles very well. Margot is still great as Harley just like she has portrayed her character in her last appearance and still never lost her touch. As for Ewan McGregor, he really done a great job in playing a ruthless and menacing villain. Aside from them, Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whom they played Black Canary and Huntress respectively have done a great job too, especially the latter who manage to steal the show when she has the least amount of screen time compared to the others. As for Rosie Perez and Ella Jay Basco, they done good job in their performance but for Ella, her character bears no resemblance to her comic book counterpart which hurts the movie a little. Hopefully in the next movie, she will have a better character development into her comic book counterpart.

The fighting scenes in this movie are very well shot by Chad Stahelski, who is well known as the director of John Wick movies. Using his experience from those movies, he has made the fighting scenes looked awesome and violent just like what was seen in John Wick movies. While the movie is great, there are some flaws. I felt the movie is a little too short on the runtime and should have been longer since this is a team movie. Despite being a team movie, the characters did not spend much time on screen together until the final act.

Although the story is simple to follow, there are not many surprises in the movie as there are no cameos from Joker and even Batman. Not even a plot twist which I personally think it’s better not to have one because it may ruin the narrative of the story in a bad way. Even with all these flaws at the end of the day, Birds of Prey is so much better team movie than Suicide Squad and even 2017’s Justice League. That said, I look forward to see Harley again in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad in 2021. With DC Extended Universe now having four good movies including this one, I hope to see the franchise keep moving forward. There is no post credits scene but there is a post-credits audio sequence from Harley Quinn. Next stop: Wonder Woman 1984.