Birds of Prey (2020)

What a delightful little romp this movie is! It saddens me that it underperformed at the box office, and I can't quite wrap my finger around it. True comic book fans should be a minority of the wide audience, so the fact that this movie does not treat the Birds of Prey team well at all (which, as a non-comic fan, I barely heard of before) should have not put off too many viewers. Harley Quinn seemed to be an amazingly popular character, so would it truly pull in more viewers if her name were featured more prominently? I saw very little interest and buzz for the movie despite what I think was a pretty sizeable if a bit misguided promotional campaign, so perhaps, especially with an R rating, it lost too much of the cult following she seemed to have in pop culture.

If the movie has been penalized by unfortunate so called 'woke' feminist propaganda (the main offender of which comes from the fedifragous main male actor), I can only feel sad about it because it has nothing to do with the movie. The movie does not take itself seriously for a moment and does not push agendas: there's no ballsbusting for the sake of it as some people caught up in a certain narrative try to make you think (a main character is saved and trained by a man, for instance?) and the Birds of Prey are all flawed heroes, if anything, everyone of any gender and ethnicity is whimsically a horrible person in this movie. The action is great and the main character - because this IS very much a Harley Quinn movie- is hysterical: the whole fourth wall breach and non-linear story makes this movie really close to Deadpool 2, and I find it way funnier and with better action than that (and with 100% less dick joke overload).
Unfortunately, the plot is as mac-guffiny as it gets (I think the whole "street urchin steals very important item and is hunted by the baddies" plot line was already sorta old in the 1940s) and any character that is NOT Harley Quinn is underdeveloped (even if nowhere nearly as horrid as in Suicide Squad, a couple of them don't seem to get a proper character arch). Still, with a movie this wacky and driven through by the cartoon character (meant in the best possible way) perfomance by Margot Robbie, I did not see any of that as a problem. It's a wildly entertaining movie, if you just take it for entertainment and you don't try to see issues and agendas other than the obvious fact that it is a movie about an (already established and existing) all female group, and a character emancipating from the psychotic abusive boyfriend that is not a part of the DC cinematic universe (if there is such a thing?) anymore for entirely unrelated reasons.

Fun and a joy to watch in particular in the more colorful and less plot-driven first half, it has very well shot action sequences who do have that Chad Stahelski touch to them and that is a pleasant break from the usually terrible messy fights happening in comic book movies. I was pleasantly surprised. A solid 8 out 10.

Sammo ★

Harley Quinn is back, and she along with some female friends are out to beat up on some male badness in this Birds of Prey movie that's like Suicide Squad meets Deadpool plus a big heaping of grrl-powered RAGE! An impulsive little Asian girl thief named Cassandra steals a prized diamond and Black Canary, Huntress, ex-cop Montoya and Harley all get a chance to beat up everyone! Forget the subplots and the Warner Bros. Silliness-That's the story! Margot Robbie is the main character! The film is fine for a little bit until improbable acting and action wear it down to just another Feminist tale. 2 stars.

Erik M.

This movie was an uninteresting dud. The plot and villains are generic. None of the characters are particularly interesting (though Margot Robbie and Ewan McGregor give entertaining performances), with the character of the Huntress feeling like she was just randomly inserted into the movie. Perhaps the biggest sin the movie commits is its jarring use of fourth wall breaking flashbacks, which come across that the film is trying to capture the vibe of the Deadpool movies.

Phaneron ★

1/10. The 1 is me being generous. This whole thing is a disaster. They should've done Gotham City Sirens with Poison Ivy, Cat Woman, and Katana with Harley Quinn. What do they do? A disastrous feminist gripe fest with another actor, Margot Robbie, who's now got a swelled head, in the producer or whatever chair. "Men are evil" theme is getting tedious, if you wanna protest the treatment of women in the Middle East that's different because that is a place of oppression. But no we get a whine session here with Robbie hogging the spotlight and McGregor shooting his mouth while destroying an excellently layered Batman character. Margot Robbie's talented no debate. But she needs to read better scripts such as for "Suicide Squad." " Once Upon A Time In Hollywood", and especially " I Tonya" where she should've won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Leading Actress. This and Bombshell should clue her in on what people don't wanna see. Maybe she'll see the light. I hope so, otherwise she's through with audiences.

Rob245