Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn: Should You Flock to See It?

This movie has a name crisis. Originally it was called Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. This is the longest name for a movie I've ever heard. A few weeks after release, the name was changed to simply Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey to increase ticket sales. I think that's way too generic a name. The first title matches the wackiness of the film. For this review I'm just going to call it Birds of Prey.

Birds of Prey is directed by Cathy Yan and stars Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Ella Jay Basco, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ewan McGregor, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Having just split from the Joker, Harley Quinn (Robbie) is trying to find her place in Gotham. When a young girl (Basco) steals a valuable diamond from crime lord Roman Sionis (McGregor), Quinn decides to protect her from him and his army. With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

Say what you will about 2016's Suicide Squad, but the best part about that movie was Harley Quinn. The reason she worked so well was the way Margot Robbie played. The same thing can be said for Birds. She's fantastic in this role. It's hard to imagine anyone else but her as the character. This time things are a bit more interesting. No longer bound to the Joker, she's free to be whoever she wants. The beginning part of the movie deals with her reaction and it's quite a roller coaster of emotions. At first, she's devastated, but then Quinn starts to come around to the fact that this might be the best thing that happened to her. After all, the Joker really isn't the zenith of ¨relationship goals¨ (he threw Quinn into a vat of acid). It's fascinating to see this all unfold. What I really like about this movie is that, even though Harley no longer is with Joker, this doesn't mean that she's a good guy. At one point in the film she says to Cassandra Cain (Basco), you made me want to be a less terrible person. This was something I really enjoyed because Harley Quinn has done some terrible things and I don't think she's ready to be a hero yet. Robbie does a fantastic job of showing highs and lows of this character. Another thing I liked about this movie was the chemistry between the Birds of Prey. This team consists of Renee Montoya (Perez) a Gotham cop who is putting together a case against Sionis, Dinah Lance/Black Canary (Smollett-Bell), a singer with a very powerful voice, and Helena Bertinelli/Huntress (Winstead), a mysterious assassin who's lethal with a cross-bow. The back-and-forth between them is great. At first, they're not too fond of each other, but as the movie progresses, their relationship shifts. I hope to see them together again in a future film. Another character I liked was Roman Sionis a.k.a Black Mask. McGregor did a really good job in the role. He's very unpredictable. One moment he'll be laughing and the next he'll be ready to kill you. While he can be over the top at times, I found that it worked for me. It matched the style of the film, which someone described as a Quentin Tarantino comic-book movie. In a way, it is. There's a lot of shock value and the way it's edited is somewhat similar to his films. The humor in the movie works pretty well also. It's pretty dark, but I liked it. It makes sense that the ex-girlfriend of a psychotic clown would have some jokes. Another highlight for me was the action. None of these characters (aside from Dinah) have extraordinary abilities, so their fighting style is very gritty. It helps that Jonathan Eusebio, the stunt coordinator on the John Wick films, worked on this movie too. The action is very rugged and dirty. There are several one shot sequences that just look awesome. The R-rating adds a lot to it.

Even though this movie is called Birds of Prey (originally) the aforementioned team isn't in the movie very much. The characters are, but they're not all together until the final act, which was a bit of a bummer. I wanted to see more of their chemistry. Even though I really liked Huntress, she's not in the movie very much and doesn't add that much to the story, in my opinion. The first act of the film has some interesting parts, mainly with Quinn figuring herself out, but other than that, it's a bit clunky. There are several en media res's that kinda had me confused since they would go on for such a long period of time and then cut back to the main plot. At times I would think to myself, wait is this a flashback or actually the main story. At one point in the movie, Quinn is talking about the diamond and how the girl stole it, but, to my memory, the movie never shows how Harley found out that Cain stole it. They aren't even in the same location. This just might be me missing something though. At some parts of the movie, the film felt like it wanted to be Deadpool. Harley Quinn is narrating the movie (which isn't a just a Deadpool thing) and at other times she would break the fourth wall. I didn't know that the character did that. That's just a tiny gripe I had with it. Sometimes, especially in the middle, the movie tends to drag on a bit. Going in, I thought this movie was a little over two hours. It's really an hour and fifty minutes.

Overall, Birds of Prey is a pretty fun movie. The performances, mainly by Robbie (who's fantastic as Harley), are great, the chemistry among the girls was really good, I liked the overall style of the film, and the action is spectacular. The movie is somewhat held back by the many en media res's, a clunky first act, some moments that tend to drag on a bit, and the lack of seeing the team together. I'd still recommend you go see this movie because it is pretty fun and it's great to see Robbie as Harley Quinn. If I were to rate it, I'd give Birds of Prey a 7.5-8/10. There is a little something after the credits, but by no means is it necessary to see. It's still pretty funny though!