Directed by Cathy Yan

Written by Christina Hodson

Produced by Margot Robbie

Starring Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell

Birds of Prey fucking sucks. What started as a sort of okay meh kind of time “fun” movie quickly devolves into an annoying mess of an excuse for a spinoff origin story. Margot Robbie is great again as the batshit crazy Harley Quinn, just as she was in the dreadful Suicide Squad, but that can’t save the movie from its detached and weak script. Couple that with some pitiful acting among the other star players and questionable music choices blasted like a bad music video and you’ve got the Fantabuluous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.

Why is this movie even called Birds of Prey? It’s a Harley Quinn story, told at times painfully through Robbie’s overbearing non stop narration. She gets almost all the screen time, the other “Birds”? Come and go, and some are introduced early on, and then never seen again until sparingly close to the end. It’s surprisingly uninvesting, the movie thinks it’s way more fun than it actually is. The barely competent editing throws the timing of many of the jokes all off. Harley Quinn revels in shock value and quirky dark humor, but the movie can’t seem to stay on the same page. Nowhere is this more clear than the villain Roman Sionis, played by Ewan McGregor. Oh god. He’s such a good actor, now thrown into over the top villainy that’s going to have you cringing. It started off okay too, I thought he was gonna be great in the role. But sure enough, just like the rest of the cast, he began to grow on my nerves.

Who told these actors to just break all sense of direction? Sometimes Ewan is having so much fun in his role, the next he’s dancing and crying and speaking in high pitched squeals like a maniac. Then he tries to be menacing. What is going on in that scene that he has that woman’s dress cut off?

But I’ve gotten a bit too far ahead, let me cut back to the beginning, like this movie always fucking does. It has an annoying habit of showing you scenes from later in the film, then saying whoops! forgot to tell you the intro of such and such characterr, then cuts back in time, then when it comes back it shows the moments you just saw! Does it happen once? NOPE, this is the entire movie. Who on earth would leave the intros to some of the main characters past the halfway point?

Anyway. You know the story. The Joker has broken up with Harley Quinn. She takes this well. She gives herself tattoos and cuts her hair short (these are the better parts of the movie). And also gets a Hyena she names Bruce “after that hunky Wayne guy”. That hyena needed more screen time.

She goes around town celebrating her newfound freedom, but she hasn’t told anyone yet about her breakup with Mister Jay. So she still has immunity from the crime bosses and their posse. And that’s where Roman comes in, as the new mob boss of crime in Gotham. She breaks his drivers legs and gets away with it. That’s the kind of power being with the Joker had. You can guess what’s gonna happen when everyone finds out the truth.

At the nightclub she frequents is Dinah, who sure can sing high notes! That’ll play it’s part by the end. Roman chooses her to be his new driver. I’m not gonna elaborate why. While all this is going on a detective named Montoya is tracking a killer who uses crossbows to kill her targets. She finds Harley’s J necklace at the scene of the explosion.

Oh right! Let’s rewind again!! Harley’s final act of vengeance for cutting off her ties with the joker is to run a gas truck into the place where her romance with him all began. That industrial plant. Big explosion. She throws her fond necklace with his J on it out the window. Okay, we caught up now? Good

Now there’s a diamond. Oh yes you knew this movie had to have  dumb plot device. Deeply imbedded on it are the account numbers to a fortune of a famous crime family. It’ll all connect by the end but you’ll wish it didn’t. Roman wants that diamond

But wait!! There’s a KID. OH YES YOU KNEW THIS TERRIBLE MOVIE HAD TO HAVE A TERRIBLE KID ACTOR IN IT DIDN’T YOU? She’s a pickpocket. Guess who gets that diamond?!? HAHA

Side note: I feel terrible that she’s just a kid, but she sucked. She sounds like she’s awkwardly reading cue cards for all her lines. That’s probably the director’s fault. And the script. And that editing. What the fuck ever.

The kid’s name is Cassandra Cain. I did like how she puts stolen objects in her cast. But other than that I got nothing. Btw Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the Crossbow Killer, and she is pitiful. Looking miserable every second she’s on screen. Like what the fuck is this movie I’m watching?

The only other actor than Margot who is spared onscreen cringe is Jurnee Smollett-Bell, who is Dinah. She was the only one to take her role seriously (maybe she wasn’t supposed to, but I glanced dignity from her role in this mess). I like how she talks to the other “Birds” at the end. She’s got the potential for future outings, dunno about anyone else.

I don’t want to talk about this mess of a waste of time anymore. Watch when Ewan puts his mask on. I threw my hands in the air in total cringe. You may howl laughing. Those are the only two reactions. This movie just throws so many things at you hoping the comedy will land, and it mostly flattens. Harley Quinn gets sold out by someone close to her, and there’s a canary in the background car right behind him. Come on. Bruce the hyena conveniently goes missing for the entire runtime, when really he could have had so much to offer. We seriously needed that hyena.

What I said before perfectly sums this whole experience up. Birds of Prey just is not as fun as it thinks it is. The script by Christina Hodson, needed rewrite after rewrite after rewrite. This movie feels separated from even the comic world it inhabits. It makes no real sense to me. Cathy Yan’s direction was about on par for what you’d expect. The movie is dim and the colors kinda sucked out but not to the damaging degree of Suicide Squad. At least she kinda knew how to move the camera, but needs to work on blocking and getting decent performances from the actors. I did like the scene where Harley shoots up the police station with smoke bombs and confetti.

I can’t believe how stupid and dumb this movie is. And it’s stupid and dumb in mostly the wrong ways. I don’t understand how Roman’s right hand man reveals to him late, I mean LATE in the movie that Harley and the Joker broke up, and Roman acts like it’s brand new information? Huh? How did he not know all this time? McGregor’s acting in the newfound knowledge blew my mind, I can’t tell if he’s trolling or not. WHAT IS THIS MOVIE

And his right hand man, always whispering evil thoughts into Roman’s ear. A played straight for evil villain, who could have been so much more interesting. And do you buy that Harley can take out a room of a dozen dudes twice her size in a crammed prison who just an empty shotgun? If so, how does the elderly cop Montoya almost go toe to toe with her 1 on 1 at the end? Cause she punches her in the tits with her handcuffs? What? Harley shoulda slammed her instantly.

The final act of the movie is as bad as Wonder Woman’s was. Boring and drawn out and terrible. With a climax I could not have possibly cared less about. And a teaming up that should have been where the movie began and not when it ended.

So don’t see this movie. Just don’t do it to yourself. I don’t care what score it has on RT, those pieces of shit told you to go see Aquaman so they can suck my dick. Margot Robbie is a wonderful actress, and I do like her a lot as Harley Quinn. Her scene where she talks about what a Harlequin is, is one of the best in the movie, and has some of her best acting. But as the star and producer of this pet project of hers, she has got to do better. She of all people should have thrown that script in the trash. And hired a director who wouldn’t shamelessly paste weird music choices to blast loudly over the dialogue. Also pointing out your movie’s shortcomings in your movie doesn’t excuse the shortcomings. Like them talking about how Huntress (Crossbow Killer) has to work on her lines when she kills people. Or “does she always talk like a cop in a bad 80s movie?”. Cringe. Or how about how they throw in that Montoya was in a relationship with Ali Wong? These fucking decisions. And Harley’s narration drones on and on and on, and is constant through the whole runtime until you’re sick of her voice and antics. Is it strange that I thought about how Harrison Ford’s narration in the original theatrical cut of Blade Runner was so bad that it eventually inspired 6 more cuts without it?