The first in a long line of superhero movies releasing in 2020 has arrived. After the events in 2016’s Suicide Squad, criminal Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie, has ended her relationship with The Joker and must now find out who she is without the clown prince of crime. However, without The Joker’s protection, there’s a sizable portion of Gotham City who want her dead, not the least of which is Roman Sionis, a narcissistic and sadistic crime boss. Harley must team up with superheroines Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya to thwart Roman’s villainous schemes, and protect a girl named Cassandra Cain who inadvertently stole from the crime boss.
To start off with the performances, everyone brings their A game and each character feels developed and distinct after only a few minutes on film.
Margot Robbie is wonderfully animated as Harley Quinn. She gives 100% for every scene she’s in. She’s unhinged in all the right ways. She sells the fight scenes and the character’s quirkiness in every way.
Ewan McGregor’s Roman Sionis is another character highlight of the film. He acts full of himself and overconfident, but on the turn of a dime he can become the scariest man in the room. He’s in no way sympathetic, or deep, but he’s easily the best villain the DC movies has had since The Dark Knight’s Joker.
My personal favorite is Huntress, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She definitely pulls off the badass persona well, but only when she’s not trying to be badass. When she tries, she comes off as anxious and unsure of herself, leading to many comedic scenes. She has the least amount of screen time of all the characters, but definitely leaves an impact with her limited screen time.
The action scenes are no slouch either, as each one is unique and creative. Each character has their own fighting style, be it bare-knuckle brawler or martial arts expert. I have to give the fight choreographer props for what they did with Harley Quinn’s fights, as they did the impossible and made fighting with a baseball bat inventive, fun, and cool. I also have to praise the movie’s choice in music, as each song fits their scene’s perfectly.
As for the negatives, I only have three gripes. The first of which is the entire first third of the film. It moves at a snail’s pace, and is honestly not interesting at all. I was thinking to myself, “Oh god, is the whole movie like this? I made a mistake.” Luckily, once the main conflict of the film gets going, the movie picks up and becomes a lot of fun.
Number two, it takes forever for the Birds of Prey to get together. It’s five minutes before the climax when the Birds of Prey finally team up, and for that five minutes they have good chemistry with each other. If you’re making a team movie, have the team meet up at the halfway point at least, not in the last 20 minutes. It would make sense to call this the Harley Quinn movie instead, as she is the main focus for more than half the movie, the Birds of Prey are an afterthought.
As for my final complaint, it deals with the last scene in the movie but it’s so small I can barely consider it a spoiler, and quite honestly this might sound more like a weirdo complaining about something nobody else will care about. Harley gets a pet hyena in the movie which seemingly dies halfway through. But in the final 30 seconds, it’s revealed the hyena is alive and well, living its best life. I was thinking “please be a figment of your imagination. Harley’s insane, it could work.” But nope, the hyena is interacting with the world, other people can see it, there’s no way this hyena is made up. Are you kidding me? You have a hypercarnivore, a predator with bone crushing jaws allied with your main character and you don’t do anything with it? At least give him a scene of helping Harley kicking ass. WE NEED MORE HYENA ACTION IN MOVIES!!
Overall, Birds of Prey is a fun, colorful film you can leave your brain at the door, because if you think too hard about this movie you’re going to end up disappointed. Just get through the first third and you’ll find an entertaining action movies with some fun heroines.
Birds of Prey gets 3 1/2 stars out of 5.
