![]() ![]() (There are also a few direct nods to Suicide Squad, lest you try to forget that the two are set in the same universe, but the movie zips along fine without feeling the need to get bogged down by too much backstory.) The plot swerves, skids, and doubles back on itself as Harley recounts the unlikely tale of her emancipation and the women who inadvertently become tangled up in it, overcomplicating a fairly straightforward story in which various factions are on the hunt for a stolen diamond… or on the hunt for those who are hunting it. And make no mistake, despite the front-loaded title, this is a Harley Quinn movie first and foremost, one that’s told from her own endearingly off-kilter point of view.īirds of Prey has a deliberate stream-of-consciousness quality thanks to Harley’s breakneck voiceover, which is woven throughout - first introduced via an energetic animated prologue stuffed full of easter eggs, which seems designed to get her complicated history with the Joker out of the way up front without actually showing him. It’s the most nuanced portrayal of Harley since creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm fleshed out her backstory in “Mad Love,” one that actually takes advantage of the fact that Harleen Quinzel earned a PhD before succumbing to the Joker’s unhinged charms meaning that she not only has the smarts to be strategic when she wants to be, but also has a delicious habit of psychoanalyzing her opponents in a way that’s hilariously disarming. Luckily, in the capable hands of producer and star Margot Robbie, director Cathy Yan, and writer Christina Hodson, Birds of Prey allows us to see Harley at her most liberated a trickster goddess who undoubtedly creates more messes than she cleans up, but one who is no patsy, despite spending years in thrall to her green-haired puddin’. He once quipped in the popular Batman video game Arkham Knight that “slapping around Harley” was his “hobby.” Considering that Birds of Prey is being billed as a film about female empowerment, there was simply no place for the Joker in Harley’s ongoing story.After being underwhelmed by the initial trailers, and frustrated by the muddled mess of Suicide Squad (which squandered one of the most entertaining and bonkers concepts in DC’s canon), I worried that Birds of Prey would end up falling into the same trap as the likes of Elektra and Catwoman, slapping a pandering “girl power” narrative onto a paper-thin plot and trusting that skintight costumes would distract from how hollow it all felt. Joker is physically and emotionally abusive towards Harley. So perhaps it’s not shocking that he was not asked to appear in Birds of Prey.īut the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship in Suicide Squad - and across the DC canon - also feels rather problematic in the post-#MeToo era. The few scenes he was in lacked subtlety, to say the least: The guy had “damaged” tattooed across his forehead, just in case you forgot that he is bad. But in the end, the Joker was largely cut out of the final edit of the film. ![]() Leto hyped the appearance for months before the film’s debut, telling reporters he sent dead rodents and used condoms to his costars’ trailers to get into character. But that version of the Joker left a lot to be desired. ![]()
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