Movie Review: "Birds of Prey" Is Chaotic Good

BOP is a bop.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), as it is gloriously titled, answers the ancient cinematic question: What if Suicide Squad hadn’t been godawful?

Director Cathy Yan, writer Christina Hodson and producer/star Margot Robbie—renegade bandits, the lot of them—basically stripped that failed team-up flick for parts and did it over, but better. Turns out, the only part worth salvaging was Harley Quinn, the newly-single anarchist and former moll to gangster kingpin Joker, played with Bronx-ian, berserker verve by Robbie.

(Keep in mind that, unlike the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Comics adaptations are spinning off in wildly different directions, so Joaquin Phoenix’s unstable clown prince of crime has nothing to do with HQ. He could never.)

Where David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (and the preceding Batman and Superman features from Zack Snyder) felt as if it shouldered the solemn burden of obligation, Yan’s Birds of Prey feels joyful and looks like candy. Where Suicide Squad bungled the basics of a 'we’re putting a team together' thriller, Hodson’s script dazzlingly matches the chaos of the Coen Brothers, seemingly inspired by Raising Arizona and Burn After Reading. And where Suicide Squad squandered Harley Quinn, Birds of Prey puts her front and center without sacrificing her defining and deliriously wicked characteristics. (Her costumes, far more practical this time around, are to die for, especially her frilly cape made from 'caution' tape.)

The story, as told from Harley’s scattershot perspective, begins with her reeling from the Joker’s unceremonious dumping. (Don’t worry, it’s retold through animation, so Jared Leto didn’t have to be on set and send anyone more live rats.) Without his protection, the entire city of Gotham is free to plot their revenge against her, for all the betrayals and acts of violence she’d previously doled out just for funsies. Club owner and mask collector Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) is particularly keen to see her dead, sending his unnerving associate Victor Zsasz (a bleached-blonde Chris Messina) to cut off her face. But Harley lucks out by locating teen pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), who has a precious jewel sought by Sionis, using it as leverage for her ongoing safety.

Slightly beyond the realm of Harley Quinn’s self-involved sphere are three women on missions of their own. Dinah Lance (Jurnee-Smollett-Bell) is Sionis’ nightclub singer and driver, who informs on her boss to save the life of Cassandra Cain. Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) is the detective who takes Lance’s call, interrupting her investigation of another Gotham menace, the Crossbow Killer. And then there’s the Crossbow Killer herself, though she prefers to go by Huntress, and is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a dark and moody figure who accidentally falls out of her own gritty vengeance saga and into Harley Quinn’s funhouse flick.

It builds to a dizzying final showdown—at an amusement park, of course—that’s more inventive and giddier than anything we’ve seen in the modern DC movies era (in fairness, Wonder Woman was a different, more earnest kind of excellent). It helps that everyone on screen appears to be having a blast too, from Robbie, who’s in her element; to her co-heroes; to McGregor, a goshdarn delight as the off-kilter and hysterical "Black Mask"; to Messina, as his wackadoo sidekick. More helpful is the fact that every character has a place, and no one’s simply fulfilling a quota for the sake of it.

And oh, the gore. Birds of Prey even knows how to burst bodies and fling limbs across the screen better than Suicide Squad, which, I’ll remind you, was built around exploding heads. Harley Quinn’s preferred kind of shotgun may only fire confetti, and she’ll always choose a baseball bat over a chainsaw, but when the moment calls for it, she’s perfectly fine taking a life, or crushing a skeleton, or feeding someone to her pet Hyena. Don’t look to Birds of Prey for the moral hand-wringing that burdens Batman, or the innate goodness that fuels Diana Prince. If anything, Yan, Hodson and Robbie skewer the deranged idea that superheroes (sociopaths with god complexes, by nature) should be seen as role models by having Harley infect the mind of the admiring Cassandra. Silly? Subversive? Maybe some women just want to watch the world burn.

4/5

Birds of Prey is now in Australian cinemas. Rated MA15+ for strong themes, violence and coarse language.