Movie Breakdown: Birds Of Prey (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
I honestly can’t say I have forgiven DC for Batman v. Superman. Or Justice League. Or, well, wow, Suicide Squad. I have a hint of enthusiasm for Wonder Woman, but I’m pretty sure it was just the less ripe turd at the top of the ripe turd pile. So, my excitement level for a spin-off character from a clusterfuck of a film I can only remember as a festering sore in the my cinematic intake? Pretty low.
Post-Screening Ramble:
Our entire screening was instructed by a chipper PR person to refer to the film only by its full title: Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn. I will not be doing this, nor will I use the equally atrocious acronym, BoPatFBoHQ. A PR human asking this of an audience prior to the film speaks to the lack of identity inherent in the movie. Is this a team-up film ala Birds of Prey? If anything it’s a getting the band together type movie, with the “team-up” aspect plugged into a scant few moments near the end. Is it a character piece on Joker’s crazed (now) ex-girlfriend Harleen Quinzell (Margot Robbie)? Christina Hodson’s script, on numerous occasions, has Harley Quinn coughing up some form of “I’m a free lady now” but aside from an exploded Ace Chemicals and some good natured female empowerment, Quinn’s character doesn’t exactly grow over the course of the film. Robbie does good work with the poorly written anti-hero. You can root for Harley as a gleefully insane bad guy, but any and all motivation to be anything else falls flat, and Robbie is left trying to do everything all at once – the film’s main problem at a microscale. If anything, the movie is a simple story – a lady scorned, a lady grown, a lady shoots glitter rockets into cop’s faces – chopped and screwed through the sieve of a less-than-sane narrator into an enjoyable if overwrought flick. The manic nature of the film feels forced though, as if DC wanted the film, like its titular lady, to be near everything – a reintroduction to a popular character outside the scorched earth of the terrible film she originated, a platform for new characters with the potential of new franchises, etc. – so they let Cathy Yan go as wild as they felt comfortable with as long as the beats that needed to be hit, were hit. Yan has talent and the film has a strong streak of good in it (the action, Huntress, Chris Messina’s face-tats) but for the most part, it just has a lot. And you can write it off as a director trying to inhabit the crazed worldview of a less-than-trusty narrator, but more likely, it’s just a messy film trying to make due with the many, many asks it has been given.
One More Thought:
There are going to be some Batman stans who are not excited about the characterization of Cassandra Cain or Renee Montoya. I won’t get into it, but I’m just saying.
