Review by Courtney Anderson
I’ve found the majority of the DCEU offerings to be dreadfully, mind-numbingly boring. They’re “Grimdark” – unnecessarily bleak and literally dark films; the low lighting and gray-black-white color grading are not easy on the eyes. There’s a lot of fun to be had with the wild, extravagant stories of characters like Batman and Superman, but the DCEU seemed to be against fun for a while.
It’s only recently that things have taken a turn. Movies like Wonder Woman proved that they know how to use actual color in their films. Aquaman and Shazam showed the DCEU learning that not everything needs to be doom, gloom, and angst all the time.
And now Birds of Prey has arrived to show us that the DCEU knows how to lean into the wackiness without sacrificing style and tone. Birds of Prey is a flashy, colorful, topsy-turvy blast of a film.
Birds of Prey follows Suicide Squad alumna and everyone’s favorite criminal, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie). Harley recently broke up with her boyfriend – the Joker – and she’s having a tough time dealing with the heartbreak. On top of that, everyone she’s ever wronged wants to kill her in increasingly horrible ways.
Someone who is really eager to kill her is crimelord Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), and Harley can list a lot of reasons why. So she has to figure out how to keep him and his closest associate/partner-in-murder Victor Zsaz (bleached blond Chris Messina) from doing just that.
Harley’s not the only one whose life has been turned upside down by Roman. There’s Dinah Lance a.k.a Black Canary (Jurnee Smollet-Bell) who sings in his club and unwillingly becomes his driver. There’s Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), a detective who is trying to build a case against him and not have her chief take credit for it. There’s teenage pick-pocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), who steals the wrong diamond one day. And then there’s the mysterious Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who seems to on a quest to murder the most men in Gotham. All of these women end up having to depend on one another to survive and somehow get the homicidal, flamboyant crime lord off of their backs.
Something that I really appreciate about Birds of Prey is that the actors seem to be having the time of their lives. Margot Robbie leaps headfirst into the role of Harley Quinn, embodying into the villainous protagonist without fear or trepidation. Robbie’s wicked bright smile and complete devotion to the madness that is Harley makes it easy to root for her, even though we know that she’s done unspeakable things.
Similarly, Ewan McGregor seems to be having a grand time chewing the scenery as Roman Sionis. McGregor seems to have let go in this role, as if he found a form of freedom in Roman’s innovative cruelty.
The actor who surprised me the most is Jurnee Smollet-Bell. I didn’t doubt her (I’ve been a fan since for basically my entire life because I first watched Eve’s Bayou at a very young age), but I was still taken back by how fully she embraced the world-weariness of Dinah Lance. She felt so real; Dinah just wants to do her job and be left the hell alone, and I felt that. All of the characters feel like real people, despite the unreal situation they’ve found themselves in.
As stylized and hyper-real everything in the Birds of Prey universe is, the whole movie actually feels very grounded. I know that one aspect of the movie that contributes to that feeling is the fight choreography. I’d heard people talking about it, but I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed. The fights feel like fights. I cringed throughout these sequences not because I was embarrassed, but because those hits really sounded like they were connecting. Even Harley’s acrobatic style of fighting felt realistic. And no man’s head ended up being between a woman’s thighs! Because someone realized that you can portray women characters as badasses who kick asses without making their fighting weirdly sexual!
Speaking of, Birds of Prey manages to achieve a “Girl power!” tone without coming off as trying too hard, which is not something I can say for a lot of films marketed as such. I find that a lot of movies try to achieve some sort of quota by forcing its feminism; you end up with a lot of misused buzz words without any substance to support them.
Birds of Prey manages to avoid that. The camaraderie between the women feels natural, and it’s not so on-the-nose about the empowerment of women. These are a group of imperfect women who get to do bad things to very bad men, and it is glorious to watch. Birds of Prey feels even more complete in its feminism because it actually includes queer women (non-white queer women at that!). Not only is Harley queer, but the fact that Renee Montoya is a lesbian with an estranged ex (played by Ali Wong!) ends up playing a role in the plot.
To be honest, there’s not much I don’t like about the movie. I have an issue with the constant cuts between backstory and action, mostly because I feel like the cohesion of the storyline suffers. As much as I love the characters, they could have been developed better. This is especially true for Roman and Victor, who are very heavily implied to be lovers – but not confirmed outright. It’s a R-rated movie with at least two or three canonically queer characters! You could’ve shown a kiss between Roman and Victor.
The movie is also Harley-centric to the point where I feel like it has the wrong name; there’s no need to call it “Birds of Prey” when Harley is the focus. Just flip the name to “The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (featuring the Birds of Prey!)” and let the audience know what they’re getting right away!
But, Birds of Prey manages to rise above its sins to being a truly fun adventure. Maybe the DCEU has officially changed their ways. They’ve seen the light – and the color.