HARLEY QUINN: BIRDS OF PREY
by Le Anne Lindsay, Editor
BIRDS OF PREY: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn opened to a #Wkndboxoffice total of $33.3M, not terrible, but it would have been nicer for a female driven comic book movie to open 50M at least. Some experts say not having anything to show at San Diego Comic-Con in July hurt the anticipation of the movie. And then, advance tickets weren’t released until a week and a half before opening; that’s super late, which also took away from the momentum of making it an event movie.
The name of the movie should have been “Harley Quinn” or if you’re trying to set up future Franchises – “Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey”. I think they tried to get too cute with the long title.
Basically, what attracted us to Margo Robbie‘s character in 2016 SUICIDE SQUAD is elaborated here in “Birds of Prey”, Harley Quinn is a fun, heartbroken, multi-colored, sociopath whose a bit nutz, self-serving, resourceful; but never mean or manacle.
The Joker (never seen) breaks it off with her at the beginning of the movie and with it she loses her protection – it seems she’s made a number of enemies over the years that never retaliated because they were afraid of her boyfriend; but now she’s fair game.
Then we have the Birds of Prey aspect: Rosie Perez plays detective Renee Montoya who’s trying to solve a mob hit case involving a missing diamond, in which Harley’s gotten embroiled. The Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is seeking revenge for her family also connected to the diamond. Black Canary’s (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) a night club singer for bad guy Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) who mistakenly gets further involved in her boss’s goings on than she wants, after taking pity on Harley and helping her out of a jam. Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco ) a pick pocket kid from the hood, becomes a target once she picks the wrong pocket and becomes in possession of said diamond.
Director Cathy Yan has assembled a nice diverse cast and it’s a good enough ride, but it needs a bit of something to pull it all together. For one thing, it takes way too long for all the Birds of Prey to assemble, that’s when it finally gets tight, but that’s the last 20 mins of the movie. Also, way too much voice over and exposition for my taste – show, don’t tell.
T&T the Large Association of Movie Blogs (aka the LAMb) rating 3 outta 5
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