Directed by: Cathy Yan
Starring: Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco, Chris Messina
Margot Robbie makes someone like Harley Quinn tolerable. We were first introduced to the sexy sociopath in the depressing Suicide Squad. In that unfortunate DC Comics entry, Harley Quinn is the former Harleen Quinzel, a Gotham psychologist who goes crazy after taking on Joker as one of her patients. She falls for him and becomes his partner-in-crime. The Joker in Suicide Squad (Jared Leto) would never be mistaken for Heath Ledger's or Joaquin Phoenix's version of the supervillain.
Joker thankfully doesn't show up in Birds of Prey because Harley sadly reports to us that she and J have called it quits. It sounds like a less than mutual decision, but there you have it. Without Joker as her partner, Harley is left on her own to battle enemies who are salivating to make her dead. Among them is nightclub owner Roman Sionis (McGregor), who wants to take possession of a special jewel in the possession of a twelve-year-old pickpocket (Basco). In order to avoid being killed by the hot-tempered Roman, Harley agrees to capture the pickpocket but instead finds herself protecting the lad.
The other birds of prey in the film's field of view are Black Canary (Smollett-Bell), a singer at Roman's club who becomes his driver, the mysterious Huntress (Winstead), who kills off Roman's henchmen with a crossbow, and Detective Renee Montoya (Perez), who is trying to put Roman behind bars (as well as Harley and the Huntress). Let's be clear, this is Harley Quinn's movie. The other characters aren't developed enough to match our interest in Harley.
Even Harley's energy begins to fade, and by the end, we have the four ladies and the pre-teen battling nameless, personality-less thugs who exist only to be offed by the women in ways John Wick might envy. Birds of Prey doesn't even provide us with a satisfactory villain. McGregor's Roman is a spoiled rich kid with a wicked temper, but even when he puts on a black mask and becomes Black Mask, he doesn't possess any special powers or intelligence for us to believe he can actually defeat Harley. Why even bother with the mask? At least if the mask turned Ewan McGregor into Jim Carrey, we might have something here.
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