Birds of Prey ( And the fabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn )

Released: 7th February 2020
BBFC rating : 15
Directed by: Cathy Yan
Cast: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco, Ewan McGregor
DC movies have always been a very tricky one when it comes to reviewing them, on the one hand I love the characters from the mythos ( especially with the expanding universe ), however this DCEU slate has had varying levels of quality from the Spectacular Wonder Woman, to whatever Suicide Squad was with most of the others fitting somewhere in the middle of that. Birds of Prey certainly fits into the latter category unfortunately.  The story follows Harley Quinn ( Robbie ), recently broken up from the Joker, as she tries to establish herself in Gotham's underworld with Black Mask ( McGregor ) trying to get his own back on her while free of the consequences from Jokers protection of her.  There is a lot more going on in the film while this happens which is what I find the most puzzling about this, with so many different things going on you lose track of who is who and what is actually happening in front of you. It does start out strong, slowly revealing what is going on, but by the middle everything is going at such a strange pace ( not helped by the mish-mash time jumps ) you struggle to work out which storyline your actually on. The main issue I came away with from this is that for a film called Birds of Prey, they really don't spend much time together as the actual Birds of Prey ( which probably gives reason to why the films name has been changed ). While some characters get a really good developed storyline from this, mainly Black Mask and Quinn, others just seem to be along for the ride, with some noticeably underdeveloped. However, for the most part I did have fun with it, the tone and style seem to fit what is going on throughout, the 4th wall breaking is very character fitting and I think it does well ( for the most part ) of not falling into the trap of most female remakes these days of making it overly PC. I absolutely loved Black Mask throughout this, a charismatic villain who actually gets some sort of development throughout the film rather than just being tagged on at the end like with most superhero movies recently. The action is brilliant throughout, however I found near the end it became quite repetitive with people with vaguely the same abilities doing the same sort of thing on repeat. Overall really strong for the first half, second half seems to let it down a bit however, but for me on my DC chart it comes out well above Suicide Squad, Batman V Superman and Justice League, very much in the middle.
Contains Very strong language, strong violence, gore and torture.
My rating 6/10 ( Above average )