bird of Prey is not aSuicide Squad sequel . It is not DC and Warner Bros. ’follow up to Joker . It ’s really not even in particular a comic book superhero picture , outdoors of the fact that it star comic characters . netherworld , count on your stage of vista , whether or not it ’s a Birds of Prey moviemight be an argumentation . But here ’s the thing : What Birds of Prey is , is gaudy , bright , and fun as all hell .
Despite being released in the wake of Joker’saward - season buzz , Birds of Prey — or , to give it its full , suitably silly title , Birds of Prey ( and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)–rightfully does not care in the slim for whatever Todd Philips ’ plastic film was or what it was trying to do , outside of the fact that it too revolves around ejecting Jared Leto ’s “ damage ” interpretation of the character from Suicide Squad , thankfullynowhere to be foundhere . While Joker did so metatextually , Birds of Prey ’s premise is predicated in a more actual riddance , as Harley Quinn ( Margot Robbie ) , tired of doing all the work of the clown prince of crime , cut all ties , romantic and professional , to forge her own path . She does so in a real rainbow explosion , defiantly correct on fire the chemical substance mill the Joker had transformed her from Harleen Quinzel , Arkham Psychiatrist , and into his own Harlequin .
That is , distilled to its purest essence , what Birds of Prey is : a triumphant woman , surrounded by explosions of color , loose to not care about anything in the macrocosm but herself .
No one does it better than the Birds of Prey.Image: Warner Bros.
It is in this explosive moment — the first of many that director Cathy Yan frames in magnificent slo - mo and poppy , eclectic soundtrack choices — that doll of Prey introduces its world and the character drawn into Harley ’s orbit . As she hazard out her title aside from the Joker , more and more people in Gotham City become aware that she no longer has his repute safeguarding her . That mean that , suddenly , everyone from Gotham PD to every two - bit thug in the city wants to enact payback on her for a life history of often very awful clownery .
Among them is popish Sionis ( Ewan McGregor , playing a dead prissy foil to his enemy as he eagerly munches on scene ) , a.k.a . the Black Mask . After have a diamond in his forethought , which holds the key to a mafia family circumstances , stolen by a compulsive orphan key out Cass ( Ella Jay Basco ) , he gives Harley an ultimatum : line up the tiddler , get the diamond , or be kill by Sionis and his partner in crime , stab - well-chosen Victor Zsaz ( Chris Messina ) .
https://gizmodo.com/birds-of-prey-is-bringing-together-more-than-the-iconic-1840269820
Harley makes the world’s most explosive and declarative relationship status update.Image: Warner Bros.
This setup is rather complex and ab initio laid out in an equally complex way . In the first act of the book , we zip about in time and pacing to slowly drag the other main characters into Harley , Cass , and Roman ’s circuit . We ’re introduced to what will finally become theBirds of Prey : Black Canary ( Jurnee Smollett - Bell ) , a Isaac Merrit Singer at Sionis ’ club unsure of whether to expend her hidden powers for practiced or ill ; Detective Renee Montoya ( Rosie Perez ) , a veteran bull irked by position politics and desperate to hale Sionis in ; and the Huntress ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead ) , a deadly assassin stalking Gotham ’s criminal underbelly for revenge .
But they ’re allprimarily introducedthrough their relation to Harley and Cass ’ troth . It intend that not only is the opening of the film rather slow , out of doors of a tawdry action at law set piece here and there ( including a rarefied , scintillation - coated flak on Gotham PD ) , but we frustratingly do n’t really get to knowthe cast of the filmoutside of how Harley sees them . And in the former stages of the taradiddle , Harley in the first place sees the cleaning lady as obstacles in the path between her , Cass , and survival of the fittest .
Thankfully this dense start and , at times , confoundingly voluminous narrative apparatus is misrepresent by some of Birds of Prey ’s most uniform highlights . First is a mythologic operation by Robbie ( continuing to own this role with a apparently effortless grace and charisma , after being the exclusive muffin among the morass that was Suicide Squad ) , who takes her Suicide Squad version of Harley and amps up the humor and charisma way past 11 . The actress / producer carry Birds of Prey ’s slow frame-up with aplomb , and she ’s matrimonial to Yan ’s eclectic , colorful rendering of Gotham City in these early moments too . Yan ’s exercise of ignitor and colouration produce a refreshing and vivid look that is unlike any interpretation of the normally mediaeval lens into the urban center we ’ve see on screens big and smallso many times before . This Gotham delivers a visual dada that feels almost like cutting the populace ’s most expensivemusic video compilationto match its bright and unpredictable star topology .
Roman Sionis and Victor Zsasz, uh, cut a deal with Harley.Image: Warner Bros.
Robbie and Yan also render in the film ’s excellent and varied scope of action scenes from the get - go , from chase sequence to brutal fight scenes ( reportedly assisted byJohn Wick manager Chad Stahleski ) . These moment are seldom sanguinary despite the gas constant - rating , which is used primarily to stress its script with a yummy amount of cursing , something that feels casually endue for its female mould .
They ’re strengths that finally push the movie ’s ab initio procrastinate impulse into a around-the-clock rollercoaster of exhilarating , often hilarious rigid bit that wed a harum-scarum blowy pure tone with some unbelievably inventive , viscerally engaging action . But they ’re really kick into a high gear when the celluloid has finally established the connection between its uncounted eccentric , and can alternatively savor in letting these women bounce off of one another and , to joyfully brutal consequence , bounce off of their foes in increasingly vivid and bombastic present moment of activeness that support out as some of the best in the entire DC cinematic oeuvre . Gone are the CGI - enhanced , uber - destructive superpower - laden free-for-all of prior films , replaced by smashed , kinetic , grounded spurts of furiousness with the occasionally zany scrap of comic book of account dash .
It is through this natural process that Birds of Prey gift its distaff leads . The film make percipient early on its messages about the frustrations each of these fair sex feel about their places in smart set — whether it ’s Harley frustrated that the Joker never gave her credit for her work , paralleled with Montoya ’s stall career in the Gotham law department , Cass ’ purposelessness in a fractured dwelling house environment , or the invariant degrading Sionis and Zsasz lather out at Dinah with as she just tries to do her line , no matter how much working for such savage men irks her . But it is not something Birds of Prey lingers on , paying dues to its quality ’s feminist leanings by having them repeatedly mouth off pithy one - ocean liner about bang up the patriarchy or contend the man ( and doing so like a fille , as the pejorative would typically be ) . rather , they simply … do . You empathise the injustices each of these woman have faced in their lives without having to be consistently reminded of those unjustness , and are instead invited to savor in the releasing direction in which they enact payback for them via the substance of intricately staged , sprucely framed violence .
It takes a little too long for them to come together, but when they do, Harley, Cass, and the Birds of Prey kick some seriously fun ass.Image: Warner Bros.
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Eventually , beneath the increasing post and tightening duds finally pulling these master characters together over the film , you come to larn more about each of the titular anti - hero and why they would reasonably team up with each other in , for reasonableness that range from touching to , in one surprising case , hilarious . For some spectator , it will come a fiddling too latterly . Like most superhero team extraction moving-picture show at this point , the Birds of Prey do n’t really become the Birds of Prey until the motion-picture show ’s final routine , and while that makes for some delicious moments of interaction between each of the squad when they in the end do unite , they can feel a little few and far between , especially as the film leans in on mining the burgeoning kinship between Cass and Harley , the former serving as the latter ’s accelerator on her route to being , as she puts it , a little less of a terrible person .
But even if Birds of Prey takes a small while to get going with its theatrical role up to that stop , you ’re rewarded with perhaps one of the most fun third acts in a DC cinema so far , a face-off between Sionis ’ mercenary forces and the Birds in an abandon theme green that full embraces the zaniness of its setting to fully unleash our heroes ’ likewise eclectic fight manakin . It ’s here that Yan ’s command of directing natural process really glint , as the tv camera whips around house - of - mirrors mazes , carnival slides , and trampoline - stud funhouse stage to highlight Harley and the Birds kick ass and , above all , own fun while doing so . It ’s an esoteric embrace of risible book style , if not draw in from a particular interlingual rendition of the rootage fabric but evoking it in dab of bold color , out - there esthetic , and the gleeful , primal atonement of its hero dish up out bloody - knuckle justice .
Cass and Harley’s partnership—a shared love of shoplifting and breakfast cereal for dinner—drives the emotional through-line of the movie.Image: Warner Bros.
In the end , that really is what fowl of Prey is . It ’s not relate with being a DC movie about a group of female zep , and how that is somehow still depressingly a groundbreaking , revelatory thing in 2020 . It is first and first a killer action movie that just happen to star an improbably charming and able cast of female characters — even if for the most part say cast has to orbit around Robbie ’s magnetic soph excursion as Harley Quinn , at the expense of us really getting to know them ( there ’ll always be elbow room in a continuation , at least ) . by from a slow orifice and not as much time with the Birds as would be really liked , Birds of Prey delivers on its otherwise laser - focused purport : shit a comic book activity picture that is an earnest , kickass gust to watch .
Birds of Prey hits theaters February 7 .
For more , make certain you ’re following us on our Instagram @io9dotcom .
Black CanaryDC ComicsDC EntertainmentHarley QuinnReviewsWarner Bros.
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