Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Director Cathy Yun
Starring Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Rated MA
Score 2/6

After splitting with the Joker, Harley Quinn joins superheroes Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord.

Okay before we get to far into things this more Harley Quinn solo movie then a Harley Quinn and Birds of Prey cross over. Going into this I was of the mindset of supporting the Australian talent who has hit big, sitting here writing my review the following day I believe that Melissa Rauch gave a better portrayal of Harley Quinn in the 2017 animated move Batman and Harley Quinn then Margot Robbie did in Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.

Ahead of the release of this Harley Quinn movie I noticed that there were a lot of articles about talking the politics of the movie, basically saying that it was a deeply feminist movie. Okay fair enough, but here is the thing I don’t think that this was as a deeply feminist movie as it thought it was. But given the way the movie tried portray the relationship between Harley and The Joker and (slight spoiler) the length of the scene at the beginning of the movie where Harley eats her feelings, this is not the kind of movie that it thought it was. The marketing decision that where made for this movie have cemented the belief, I have about movies who market themselves on politics over story being studio shorthand for we have a bad movie on our hands.

I will admit that it had a couple of nice actions sequences (most notably the one involving the chemical factory) and I just might have to take a crack at making a version of the egg sandwich that Harley enjoyed being made but that was probably the only interesting things about the entire movie. Both Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress and Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain had some charming moments but didn’t give the kind of performances that could have lifted this movie in the way that it needed to be lifted. It seemed that there was no effort made by the filmmakers to make me care about the fate of the characters, I suppose this could have had something to do with director Cathy Yan’s inexperience as a director.

At best Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn was a forgettable movie.

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