[8.4/10] Birds of Prey is made of cool. It is the epitome of over-the-top fun. It is what Suicide Squad should have been. It is the movie that Harley Quinn deserves. And it is the dayglo-colored, adrenaline-soaked, no holds barred action movie we’ve been waiting for.
It also manages to take itself just seriously enough without taking itself too seriously. There’s legitimate subtext to the script, about the warm but toxic security of associations with toxic meant, about the hardship of freeing yourself from the green or black-tinged tentacles of it, and about the invigorating feeling that comes from hard-won self-dependence and assurance, not to mention sororal support in lieu of abusive co-dependence.
And yet it’s also a movie where Harley Quinn charges her way through a police station with a glitter bomb-packed shotgun, the heroes conspire to get a teenager to defecate a diamond, and the most heartbreaking loss in the whole film comes in the form of a glorious, glutinous breakfast sandwich. As legitimate as Birds of Prey’s themes are, as effective as its few moments of straight emotion are, it is not afraid to have all the fun, which is refreshing in the oft-grimdark confines of the DCEU.
It’s also an enjoyable frenetic, tangle of different threads and characters. The hunt for a diamond isn’t the only thing that leaves this movie indebted to Snatch. The interconnected storylines, the mass of characters with their own goals and puzzle piece roles in the broader whole, and explanatory jumps back and forth (and sideways) in the timeline to show how it’s all linked carry that same, crazy crimeland energy. At the same time, there’s a touch of Kill Bill to the proceedings, between the woman scorned theming and non-linear revenge plots.
But Birds of Prey is a thing unto itself, due in no small part to the incredible performance from Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn at the center of the picture. Robbie’s appeared in two awards season films in the past six months and earned her share of nominations for them, but this easily tops both of them. Her version of Quinn is profane-to-the-core yet relatable, dangerously reckless but easy to root for, uproariously funny and subtly pathos-ridden. She’s a tat-buzzing, baddie-blasting, pigtail-sporting Bugs Bunny on wheels, and Robbie’s level of depth and charm to a character who could otherwise come off as just a cartoon is a revelation.
She’s flanked by an array of other great performers who keep the film just as well-cast and colorful. Chief among them is Ewan McGregor as Roman Sionis aka Black Mask, his most scenery-chewing and terrifying role since Trainspotting. Birds of Prey unleashes McGregor’s outsized talents, making his sleazy, abusive crime boss the energetic anthesis of Quinn and the representative of all the toxicity she’s trying to flush out of her life one way or another.
Those top notch performances help hold the film together when it jumps at (nigh-literal) breakneck pace between a cadre of different stories and, more to the point, kinetic and eye-catching fight scenes. Arguably, the movie goes to that well one too many times, as it’s easy to find yourself saying, “Wait, didn’t we just do one of these?” the next time the punches and mallets and crossbow arrows fly.
And yet, the film adds such an enjoyable flair to these sequences that it’s hard to complain. Birds of Prey earns its R rating in many of these scenes, not shying away from various images of limb torsion, bone cracking, and joint smashing. Far from the risk of falling into gruesome “If it’s gory, it’s mature” pitfall, the film approaches these scenes with an air of irreverence and unreality that makes each its own colorful, kinetic romp, untethered from the dull realities of physics or anatomy.
Despite the quick cuts deployed, these set pieces slow down to show the members of the titular group, Quinn in particular, kicking ass. Rather than an undifferentiated series of thudding fisticuffs, there’s memorable fight choreography here, with flips, kicks, and jams that play as distinctive rather than the same old superhero stompfest. Flanked by a near-endless series of amusing and smile-worthy needle drops, each throwdown drips with style and joie de vivre.
That fits nicely in a film that isn’t afraid to break its own reality for the sake of the audience’s pleasure. Harley breaks the fourth wall on the regular, narrating the events and holding the viewer’s hand through some of the more knotted linkages between different pieces of the story or just depositing some of the movie’s hilarious comic asides. But director Cathy Yan also has no qualms about setting the stage with an animated introduction, breaking for a fever dream rendition of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” or capping things off with a Clown Princess of Crime-appropriate pugilistic jaunt through amusement row.
Despite the freeform insanity and deliberate sense of Quinn telling a shaggy dog (or hyena) story, writer Christina Hodson’s script is surprisingly tight. Each of the five avian avengers has a reason the villain would want them dead and why they’d want to respond in kind. The chaotic connections between them pull into focus at just the right time, and often with a funny line to seal the deal. And the shifts in tone work wonderfully, veering from heightened reality insanity to the legitimately disturbing to unexpectedly piercing pain and believable camaraderie.
In short, Birds of Prey is just a joy to watch. It boasts inventive action, style out the wazoo, and one hell of a central character. Far from reducing her to a trope, or letting the film built around her descend into the standard sturm und drang of grim cape flicks, it embraces her comprehensible chaos, and the fun but equally crazy world and players that surround her. Take a step back, Mr. J; Harley is emancipated and, god willing, plenty of heroes, villains, and ambitious-to-entertain comic book movies will follow in her red and blue footsteps.
