SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Despite its bombastic action sequences and excellent performances from Margot Robbie and Ewan McGregor, the wicked humour of DC’s latest shines a little too infrequently to make it truly great.
Birds of Prey begins with something you might not expect from a comic-book movie: a cartoon that wouldn’t be out of place on Cartoon Network. In those first few minutes lies its ultimate downfall: the promise of something truly unusual and wildly unorthodox that it never quite fulfils. To its credit, it also promises to emancipate its wacky lead character and does so successfully. Harley Quinn is freed from the constraints of the clown prince of crime and in a happy, totally unintended coincidence, DC is also freed from the constraints of Jared Leto. The issue at hand is that with films about chaos, it’s always an illusion; in reality, everything has been meticulously planned, written and paced to ensure the lid is blown off in the best way possible. With DC’s latest, there’s a bit too much restraint and not enough method to the madness.
This film works more as an origin story for the Birds of Prey. When Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) breaks up with the Joker, she decides to announce the breakup to the world by blowing up Ace Chemicals, the place she first pledged to serve him. As it goes up in toxic and highly colourful explosions, Harley finds she’s no longer protected by the Joker and everyone she’s ever pissed off is after her, including the vicious and unstable crime lord Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). Harley soon discovers she’s far from the only person to find herself threatened by Black Mask’s rise to power, with the crime lord on the hunt for those who wronged him, from street thieves to former associates and cops.
Robbie and McGregor anchor this film’s cast. Robbie plays her role with considerable aplomb; lauded previously for her true-to-character performance in the otherwise terrible Suicide Squad, she takes every opportunity to expand and let her character breathe. Harley has been transformed into a wonderful anti-heroine who delights in the simple beauty of egg sandwiches (thanks to Yan’s clever eye, we too get to appreciate the sight of eggs and bacon being fried in all their greasy glory). Despite being this film’s hero, she’s still verifiably insane with a wicked mean streak and a penchant for major violence and minor crimes. Harley wants to be seen to be more than just Joker’s girlfriend, and Robbie’s performance more than achieves that for her. For his part, it’s nice to see McGregor genuinely enjoying himself as Black Mask. Instability can be a tricky card to play, but McGregor has no trouble playing a creepy personification of toxic masculinity, with casual misogyny, deep-rooted insecurities and sadistic tendencies. The ruthlessness and unpredictability of his character makes the skin crawl.
Birds of Prey works best when it’s smacking that toxic masculinity in the face and breaking its nose. However, the odd pacing and structure of the first half means the rest of the Birds of Prey get too little of the spotlight, a shame since we do get glimpses where they shine. I can only echo Harley when she says Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Huntress is “so cool”, based not only on her action sequences, but also on those little asides that show her practicing the line “They call me Huntress” in the mirror. The infrequency of those little moments of levity is this film’s main problem. Its main character is crazy, chaotic and wants to break the rules, but the film is just a little too restrained, and a little too dedicated to the superhero movie rulebook. I found myself wishing it dared to go that little bit further.
It’s a film that needed just a little extra attitude, but it by no means lacks style. When it comes to action sequences, Birds of Prey exchanges the muffled PG-rated sci-fi violence of its predecessor for some proper R-rated hijinks, and the difference is night and day. The fight sequences are slick, capable and brutal, drawing just a little on the John Wick films, of all things. It’s like going to the carnival; as Harley attacks the GCPD, her gun fires clouds of confetti and glitter and it’s a truly glorious thing to witness. It’s frequently flamboyant and loud, featuring a Gotham City whose colour-saturated underbelly is a far cry from the dingy, damp alleyways of other interpretations. Someone maybe enjoyed themselves a little too much choreographing and editing this, and that almost-guilty sense of satisfaction of watching Harley swinging a baseball bat around, or chasing a car on roller skates is passed on to us.
In the end, this is a film that’s defined by the phrase “just a little bit more”, because that’s exactly what it needed. Films like Deadpool carry themselves forward on a style of pure silliness and anarchy, but Birds of Prey holds back just a little bit too much, so its own lack of substance makes itself evident. But I can’t really complain that much. It’s still entertaining, unusual and proudly claims a distinct identity to call its own, which not all superhero films manage to do. I hope the next one truly soars.
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