Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is the semi-sequel to the Suicide Squad from a few years ago… but don’t let that sway you from seeing this movie. Birds of Prey, as a comic book property, consists of a rotating collection of female superheroes… of which one Harley Quinn is not among (since she’s a villain). But this movie wants to deliver us a new Harley Quinn movie – starring the excellent Margot Robbie – and a backdoor pilot to future Birds of Prey movies. Probably. I suspect it’s just going to lead to more Harley Quinn movies since her image and outfits pay the bills (and since the movie didn’t do well opening weekend).
In this film, Harley Quinn, gangster moll to Joker, has broken up with Mr. J. and now all of Gotham Cities gangsters, criminals, assassins, and psychotics are gunning for her since she no longer has his protection. Harley has to inadvertently and somewhat randomly team up with a squad of other female criminals and heroes to battle the forces of criminal gangster Black Mask (as plaid devilishly by Ewan McGregor). Who wants a MacGuffin for reasons… it hardly matters though since this is more about the antics than the plot.
The film is a total Harley Quinn-fest and I’m ok with that since Margot Robbie is having ALL the fun. She’s energetic, exciting, and impish… she loves equally a good egg sandwich, a pet hyena, a drunken night on the town, and good old fashioned crime. Which is the point where I also note that this is a very rated R movie… delightfully and surprisingly rated R. There’s a plethora of cursing, somewhat gruesome violence, and just general mayhem and broken bones. It’s not to the level of Deadpool in its go-for-broke mayhem… but it climbs a bit of that ladder.
Harley Quinn is joined by the characters Renee Montoya (Gotham City police detective), The Huntress, Black Canary, and Cassandra Cain. Each of these ladies gets a backstory, some more detailed than others and, to be fair, far better told than what we got in Suicide Squad. Which matters because both movies are rushing to get a gang together, but Birds of Prey does it with much more assured editing and storytelling. We get to learn more about these characters and actually like and enjoy them.
As to the action in the flick, it’s remarkably good. There’s a certain level of assurance and anarchistic joy to the hand-to-hand fights and Robbie (or her stunt double) do a great job. There’s a larger melee near the end of the film that isn’t quite as good as others but it’s still shot with solid surreal energy and visuals. And a car chase vs. roller-skates fight sequence is one of the best action set pieces I’ve seen in a while.
I’d say this is a very fun, very well shot action comedy gangster flick. So, yeah, I’d highly recommend this fun little movie. It’s got a lot of energy, it’s shot well, the acting is really surprisingly good, and it’s overall just full of a whole lot of joy. Margot Robbie is great as Harley Quinn and the other actors are putting in a lot of work too. This is a surprisingly good sequel to a movie a lot of people didn’t like and it’s so much better than what it did.
Score: 86