Harley Quinn's life is moments from ending. Bullets are flying and the men she's fighting want her dead. She ducks down behind a pallet of wrapped parcels as subsonic projectiles rip into them. The contents of the parcels waft all over her. It's class A content. She realises what she's being sprinkled with and with a wicked gleam in her eye inhales like she's never inhaled before. Then she unleashes hell with a baseball bat. It's a highly entertaining moment and one you'll never ever see in a Marvel movie. Between this and Joker it look's like DC is the place to be.
Mr J has broken Harley Quinn's (Margot Robbie) heart and it's time for her to let off some steam. The hair gets a chop, she finds a new place to live and she blows up the chemical factory where her failed romance began. But because she's not protected anymore all the people she's wronged in the past are out to get her. These people include Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), a crime boss and his henchman, a psychopath called Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina, very effective) who's partial to peeling people's faces off. Meanwhile, a crossbow wielding vigilante (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is working her way through Gotham city's underworld and it's only a matter of time before she crosses paths with Harley.
The film may be called Birds Of Prey after the all woman vigilante gang created by DC comics but Harley is the main attraction and Margot Robbie has a whale of a time as the multi coloured loon who may deal with her issues using a bat and by feeding them to a man eating hyena but underneath it all she's not a bad sort, she just needs a nudge in the right direction. Everytime she gets that glint in her eye and that knowing smile on her face you know things are about to get crunchy and director Cathy Yan does her justice with some brilliantly realised action beats and fight scenes. It's a joy to watch an onscreen fight and not be on the verge of a fit from all the choppy editing and flashy cuts. The R rating helps here, there's no need to cut away and use quick edits to tone down the violence. Scraps play out in all their brutal femur snapping, limb severing glory. The R rating helps create a couple of genuinely unsettling bad guys too. When you see what Zsasz gets up to you'll never be scared by Thanos again and a scene of humiliation in a nightclub instigated by Sionis is a moment of extreme toxic masculinity that feels more real world than comic book that will trouble many in the audience. It's always better when a comic book villain feels like a proper threat instead of a CGI cloud because it adds an ummph and gives our lead something to batter in a satisfying manner.
The downside of Robbie playing Quinn so well is the fact that the film does suffer at times when she's not the centre of attention. One big subplot about a crooked cop by the name of Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) is a big dull dud that ties into the ending in a way that just does not feel earned at all. Other supporting characters fare better though. Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) brings a crunching physicality to her part and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) as a young pickpocket taken under Harley's wing gives the film a little touch of humanity that helps leaven the comic book excesses. Unlike DC's last adult outing Joker this one is all the way comic book. If you aren't a fan of these type of movies this one isn't going to change your mind. It's all about surface pleasures and depth is not a word in it's vocabulary. But no one comes to a film like this for substance tbh, we come for fun and this delivers in spades. A glitter strewn cop shop shootout. A bone breaking blitzkrieg in an evidence locker. That final funfair scrap where everyone comes together and share hair bobbins while decimating faces with huge weapons. The nicely economical opening scenes where we get an animated background to Harley's story. The latter is especially welcome in a time where comic book adaptions are legion.
Birds Of Prey is a fun watch and is so much better than Suicide Squad, the putrid mess that spawned this spin off, ever was. One teensy little call back aside this stands on its own two feet and is all the better for it. It's Robbie's show and she's wicked fun in command of a rare comic book tale that passes the Bechdel test with ease.
In cinemas now.
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