Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn)

I just saw Birds of Prey, and this was not exactly what I expected it to be. It is more of a feminist movie, but I will get to that in a second.

Reviewing Birds of Prey is a bit tough. For instance, it was the best superhero movie I have ever seen along with Deadpool and Joker, in the past 10 years. That can tell you a little bit about my taste in movies. All 3 movies are Rated R.

Birds of Prey is a feminist movie, with an all female cast, along with a set of female actors. Even the director Cathy Yan, and the screenwriter Christina Hodson were females, but that has nothing to do with the review. The movie employs Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn along with a set of actors (Mary Elizabeth Winstead as The Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary, Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya, and Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain), along with male antagonists.

The movie is a third person, limited viewpoint movie with Harley Quinn frequently narrating and telling the story. I thought this movie was about Birds of Prey at first but I was mistaken. For one thing, the movie is more Black Comedy than Superhero. It is just labelled Superhero to fit in with the DCEU universe. I mean, the only member of the team with a superhero power was Black Canary, and she only uses it once. Also, the movie is more of a Mafia Crime movie, with Harley Quinn as the lead character.

So basically, the Birds of Prey get little characterization, which is fine. Like I said, this is a Harley Quinn movie, and I repeat it again, I expected it to be Birds of Prey because I've read the comics. But I do not regret watching it, or even Birds of Prey getting less characterization. Harley Quinn becomes the lead, and Margot Robbie does a splendid job as Harley Quinn. Even the sequels of the movie are going to be focussed on Harley Quinn.

I am not sure why Birds of Prey was Rated R. It had violence all right, but far less violence than the John Wick movies, which were rated PG 13. Ridiculous yeah!

The action scenes were very realistic all right. It was just a Black Comedy Action movie. My theory is that WB was losing money with superhero movies, and they had to set a standard. So they made it Rated R.

But the movie lost a lost of money, instead of gaining money. This was the DC movie in 10 years with the lowest opening, and to flop (since Jonah Hex). Well, Covid 19 and the rating are the reasons. The movie was released at the same time when the pandemic broke out, and Sonic a PG-13 movie was also released at the same time. Two reasons for a bad opening.

Now that the market is unstable, Hollywood will incur losses. I am looking forward for Wonder Woman 84 as well, but if things go south, they won't recover.

The next sequel that was planned was a movie with Poison Ivy.