“Here's the thing, Romy baby: your protection is based on the fact that people are scared of you. Just like they're scared of Mr. J. But I'm the one they should be scared of! Not you, not Mr.J! Because I'm Harley Fucking Quinn!”
While most people re watching that film that shouldn’t share the same name as James Gunn’s take of Suicide Squad, I decided to re watch the far superior live action film featuring Harley Quinn. One that’s unapologetic, cocaine inducing, visually appealing, highly energetic, and insanely entertaining that’s brings so much more personality and life than a large majority of blockbusters in the last decade. That’s right, Birds of Prey motherfucker.
The best way to describe Birds of Prey is thinking of a massive combination of Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, Reservoir Dogs, and Kick Ass with a little John Wick and Batman Forever thrown in the mix. Which on paper, it sounds like some pretentious edge lord cringe feast, but through it’s execution, it’s handled in a way that’s clever and unapologetic with its self awareness (mainly with Harley’s narration and lose based structure) that makes every style of humor, action, visual landscape, musical choice etc feel it has a lot of personality and cocaine energy to it all. Not once does it comes off as cringey or annoying, it all feels in line within the tone and vibe of the film as a whole.
In keeping things in with personality and depth, this film does justice within its character work. Especially with Harley Quinn, who not only has finally shown Margot Robbie’s true talent in bring her performance as the character to the fullest potential, but also gave Harley as a fully functional and deep rooted character (something that we should have gotten from that other film). They could easily make her more of a joke with not much behind her and only plays off as a comedic character with no dramatic beats behind it. But the film smartly understands that Harley need to have an exceptional arc of her is that she need to grow to become of her own woman, and not being labeled as just dumb blond or just the Joker's girlfriend. She’s none of that. She’s Harley Fucking Quinn, and it’s provided with the right amount of dramatic beats and comedic elements to play into the examination of who Harley is as a character while also proving the same quirky and funny personality she's known for. Which is given major praise to Robbie's performance and Christina Hodson's writing that nails it so perfectly.
But it's not just Harley's show (even though most of it is), each of the women in this truly come on their own, embracing their personalities, overcoming whatever hatred, abuse, or trouble they may face in their life, and become such badass warriors who kick so much ass brings such a big dumb smile on my face, and they all do such a fabulous (not pun intended) job pulling their game and making them just as interesting and charm as Harley (the highlight being Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Huntress, who simply steals the entire show). Speaking of charm and stealing the show, Ewan McGregor's Black Mask is nothing about absolute banger. He plays Roman Sionis with expert TEA based on how he chews up the scenery in every scene he's in, how he can be both threatening and funny at just the right moments, and he has enough motivation in him to make him like a legitimate threat in the film. It's absolutely playing into the Jim Carrey Riddler and William Defoe Green Goblin channel type of villain with Black Mask, and based on the tone and nature of his character within the tone and nature of the film, and I love every minute of his character's appearance in this.
Let’s talking Cathy Yan’s amazing directing and Mathew Libatique’s eye popping cinematography. The collaboration between the two is totally unique and is like a match made in Heaven. As through Yan’s directing, she give a voice that’s totally her own and so beautifully crazy and wild. Not only sticking true to how she sees Harley Quinn and the birds of prey as a whole, but also understandably knows what kind of film this is. Having nothing but being a chaotic bop through and through, and that’s something I want more blockbusters to be like, because I would eat that shit up 24/7. On top with king Matthew’s skills as a cinematographer being front and centered. Not only is every shot and frame is filled with so much color and style, but the camera is also is utilized in very clever ways to help either create a unique and clever scene that also aids within the crazy and energetic editing style of the film, but also helps to get into the mindset of each character in their own unique ways that adds to hyper fluent and colorful presence it's going for, as well adding music choices that fits each scene and character personality with a TEA. Not to mention that the action in this film is absolutely fantastic Not only everything is in camera and you can see the action being played out, but you can feel every punch, kick, toss, slap, shot, kill, basically, everything you come to expect in action sequences in a comic book film. But much like the rest of the film, the film is so stylized yet so grounded that the action comes off more like John Wick like action that features incredible and badass women (which makes sense, considering the director of John Wick was credited as a second unit director on this film) and I love it.
The only real issue I had with I wished we got to see more of the actual Birds of Prey crew (you know Huntress, Black Canary, Montoya, Cassandra Cain). This is clearly Harley's movie through and through, and while there's nothing wrong with that, I just wished that more screen time would focus on the other characters and their personality to be more fleshed out and more engaging. Granted, I do like the characters enough (like I said, Huntress stole the show) and when we do finally see the them come together at the end it’s a lot of fun to watch, a little more screen time for these characters won't hurt. It suck that there probably won’t be a sequel to this film (due to the poor box office performance), because I would have love to see a sequel that showcases more of them and give them more focus on their development of some sorts.
But either way, I love Birds of Prey. I can understand that it’s not every cup of tea and it’s not a flawless film, but this is something that I want from every blockbuster and super hero film these days. Something that’s entirely filmmaker driven, so entertaining, so wild, and feels so organically real that isn’t manufactured by a studio head just to get some greedy buck of out their buckets. This is a film that has so much life, energy, color, personality, great characters, unique style of humor and action, and pure entertainment value that I will find myself re watch so many times in the future. Can’t wait to see how James Gunn’s take on the Suicide Squad.
Rating: 9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment