Year 12, Day 290 - 10/16/20 - Movie #3,676
BEFORE: OK, just 25 films left in the year 2020 now, including this one, and I think I'm officially halfway through October now, this is the 12th of 24 scheduled films. The month itself is half over, so I think I'm right on schedule. Will still have to add 3 skip days to spread out 12 films over 15 days, no problem. This schedule was originally designed back when I thought there might be a New York Comic-Con this year, but it got cancelled, just like nearly everything else.
It's the year of the Constant Reschedule, the year of Weird Movies, and the year of DC Comics (not Marvel). All of those things apply to "Birds of Prey", which is probably a weird movie (since it has Harley Quinn in it, all bets are off) and I've rescheduled it, several times I think - I wanted to watch it next to "Bombshell", but it wasn't available then. I think I had it in September's schedule for a while, then I saw the opportunity to move it to October, and together with the next two films, neatly replace three films that I both didn't have on hand and wasn't really looking forward to. So there's really nothing more 2020 to me than "Birds of Prey", I think.
A word about that title, it's just bloody awful. If this film underperformed at the box office earlier this year (and I'm not saying it did, I'll have to check) I would put at least half the blame on the title, which is A) much too wordy, plus uses "Fantabulous", which isn't even a real word, B) puts the "Birds of Prey" group first and Harley Quinn last, when it's really Harley that puts asses in the theater seats and C) doesn't follow any reasonable grammatical or marketing format. Things got so bad that after a couple months in the movie theaters the marketing geniuses felt the need to re-brand the film as "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey", which is clearly a better title in so many ways, but why didn't they use it in the FIRST PLACE then? Jesus, even "Harley Goes Bananas" would be a better title than the one they landed on. It's "Dark Phoenix" all over again, like who forgot to put "X-Men" in the title of that one - was it the same guy, did he get fired from Marvel for his bonehead mistake and then go to work for DC?
From this point on, I'm just going to call the movie "Birds of Prey", because it's a lot easier. Mary Elizabeth Winstead carries over from "Swiss Army Man".
THE PLOT: After splitting with the Joker, Harley Quinn joins Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord.
AFTER: I know, I know, it's not technically a horror movie - but anything Batman is kind of already in the ballpark of Halloween, like it's a dark fantasy, and those early Batman films by Tim Burton were very sort of gothic-horror, plus a lot of people dress up like Batman and Harley Quinn and other DC characters for Halloween and at NY Comic-Con. So let's just say this is Halloween-tangential and let this slide into October, OK? I didn't want to watch the "Nightmare on Elm Street" reboot, it's not really my thing - or the other two horror films I jettisoned to make room for this one.
With "Black Widow" delayed until next May, and the whole Marvel schedule now pushed back, and my decision to not somehow drive to Connecticut to see "New Mutants", this is what I've got to work with, movies based on DC Comics - but even "Wonder Woman 1984" got delayed until at least Christmas, which effectively puts that out of my reach, too. So this year I've watched "Joker", "Shazam!" and a number of animated DC films, like "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay", "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies", "All-Star Superman", and of course, "Batman: The Killing Joke", which they really had to tone down to turn into a cartoon for kids. Admittedly, the very graphic graphic novel never explicitly states that the Joker raped Batgirl after shooting her, but come on, he's a psychopath.
Marvel and DC are both kind of going through down their checklists of heroes, and once you get past the prominent members of the Avengers and the Justice League, both universes are still chock-full of characters who headline their own books, and therefore MIGHT be worthy of being turned into movies. I don't personally care about Marvel's Eternals, or Shang-Chi for that matter, but I'd be willing to give Morbius a look-see, and then there are the upcoming TV shows like "WandaVision", "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and maybe "She-Hulk". Right now, I'm trying to finish off the previous round of Marvel shows on Netflix, before they disappear - I'm in season 3 of "Jessica Jones", then I'll just have "Luke Cage" and "Iron Fist" to go. When we finally get to the next "Venom" movie, "Thor: Love & Thunder", and the "Doctor Strange" sequel, trust me, I'll be there.
For DC, I think "Shazam" worked pretty well, but I'm not sure that "Black Adam" will do the same business. If people could just stop arguing over whether "Justice League" was a good movie or not (it was fine, let's move on!) then we can start to look forward to "The Batman", "Aquaman 2", and a solo "Flash" movie (aka "Flashpoint"). Everything else, like movies focused on Cyborg, Nightwing and the New Gods, seems like it's still in the larval stage. But before all that, it seems there will be a reboot movie focused on "The Suicide Squad" (not to be confused with "Suicide Squad", this one has a THE in the title), and with only four characters from the first film carrying over to the second, what happens to Harley Quinn in the between-time could be very important.
First things first, she breaks up with Joker (aka Puddin') - this is significant, even though we don't really know what exact form their relationship ever took, or if it was just a one-way thing (again, psychotic madman) so maybe it's for the best. Plus, this synchs up with the comic books, because Harley and the Joker haven't worked together there for several years now. (Joker's main squeeze right now is named Punchline, so they've both moved on, it seems.) It stands to reason that Harley deserves to be an interesting, action-seeking, trouble-making character of her own, but at the start of this film, she's still dealing with the emotions of a break-up. Why, why, WHY do Hollywood screenwriters have so few ways to show a woman dealing with emotions - they just fall back on overly-used, too-common tropes. Harley cuts her hair short - because THAT will show him! WTF? Why is this in every woman-empowerment film, how does cutting hair resolve anything? Then Harley stress-eats - spray-cheese, I think - but again, this is an overused, solve-nothing movie trope that's basically a shrug, admitting that writers just don't understand these complex creatures known as "women". Finally, Harley goes out and buys a pet, which seems common enough - only she buys a hyena, not a dog. THAT'S SO HARLEY! Finally, something new, exciting and different!
Look, maybe because I'm watching "Jessica Jones" right now, and that feels so much more realistic. After Jessica breaks up with Luke Cage, she doesn't cut her hair, she doesn't eat ice cream, and she doesn't buy a pet, because that's NOT HER WAY. She drinks, she goes out and punches bad people, and she finds another man to sleep with. I find this so refreshing when compared with the standard Hollywood depiction of "how a woman deals with a break-up". Maybe Harley's in a better head-space, or maybe this was intended as a send-up of Hollywood romance films, but even that's no excuse to just fall back on worn-out clichés. Oh, yeah, Harley also blew up the Ace Chemicals factory, where the Joker was created (her, too? I don't really know her origin story for some reason.) and I guess that sends out some kind of a message. Actually, the main problem with DC heroes right now is the fact that in the last decade, DC has re-booted their comic book universe TWICE, forming "The New 52" followed by "Rebirth" - so each character has up to three different origin stories now, and in one of them, Harley's white skin comes from the Joker dunking her in a vat of chemicals. So the movies are sort of free to take bits of whichever comic stories they like to put into the cinematic back-stories.
I know the "Birds of Prey" comic-book was part of the original DC universe, but I never really read it - I thought Batgirl was a driving force on that team, but there's no Batgirl in this film, nor is there any sign of Batman. Maybe he's on vacation, or this takes place concurrent with "Justice League" and he's dealing with other issues. But I know that right now in the comic books, Batman's fighting "The Joker War", in which Joker took all of Bruce Wayne's money, based on a scheme that Catwoman devised years ago and accidentally told to the wrong person, and Batman's getting help from Harley Quinn to fight Punchline. Meanwhile, in ANOTHER series called "Batman: Three Jokers", they're making things even more complicated by saying that the Joker's not really just one guy, he's actually three different criminals, a fact that Batman learned years ago in "Justice League" comics by sitting on the chair of Metron (it gave him universal insight) and finally somebody wrote a story to explain this. It doesn't make much sense, though - Batman's the world's greatest detective, wouldn't he have noticed that one Joker didn't look exactly the same as he did the last time they fought?
Anyway, Harley here teams up with the other Birds of Prey - Black Canary (now played by a woman of color, I see what you did there), Huntress and policewoman Renee Montoya (the tagline calls her a superhero, but technically she's not, just a cop). Also, there's Cassandra Cain, a pickpocket who I think later becomes Batgirl in the comics for a short time. Sorry, I know blind casting is in right now, but a stocky Asian girl was the wrong choice here, I just don't see her possibly becoming Batgirl down the road. Plus, "Cassandra Cain" is not an Asian name, not in any way. She looked like the little sister of that pudgy kid now playing Spider-Man's best friend, Ned Leeds (also not an Asian name).
They've all got reasons to hate Black Mask, the main villain here. I've seen him in the comics, and he's really not one of Batman's A-level foes - he's more like C-level, with Calendar Man and Killer Moth. Here's his deal - he wears a black skull mask. Umm, so what? Joker blows up hospitals, Mr. Freeze brings winter to the whole city, even Firefly burns stuff down, and the Black Mask, umm, wears a mask. Supposedly he's a "crime-lord", but that's a bit generic, isn't it? Also, he owns a nightclub, but so what, so did every other criminal on the "Gotham" show. The only thing criminal about the Black Mask is how much he's charging for cocktails and bottle service, so I'm not feeling it. What feels really forced here is the existence of a giant diamond, and just in case that's not enough, the diamond has some important bank codes carved into it. Yeah, OK, only nobody does that, who would ruin a beautiful diamond that way, and who would carve the things they'd want nobody to see into a gem that nearly everybody would want? It appears that originally they were going to use The Penguin for this film (another nightclub owner) but then the upcoming "Batman" film wanted that character, so the Black Mask was something of a last-minute substitute. Ewan McGregor's great, but the character is a dud.
It's too bad that it takes nearly the entire film for the different female heroes (she-roes?) to realize that they share a common enemy, and would be stronger working together. To some degree this is standard (I re-watched part "The Avengers" recently, and forgot that Captain America, Thor and Iron Man fought each other after the traditional "comic misunderstanding" when they first meet, before teaming up) but here it just takes much too long. Clearly all these strong, proud women are coming in to their own as individuals, and perhaps that leads them each to think they're alone in the world, but come on, let's get organized here!
And what's really great about Harley Quinn here is how many sequences they gave her to fight multiple enemies at a time (thankfully, they only tend to attack her one at a time, not all at once) and do those great stunts like shooting several goons with another goon's gun, or disabling one attacker and throwing him at another one, then spinning or flipping around to handle the next guy. Great stunt work here, but it's almost all Harley, except for the knock-down free-for-all at the abandoned amusement park in the climax, where finally all the main characters are involved.
The music cues here, sad to say, are just as dated as the depiction of female reactions to break-ups. Look, I'm a fan of 80's rock, but surely there must be dozens of songs about female empowerment that were released in the last decade or so. Instead we get "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" - which never really sent the right message when it came to relationships, and "Barracuda", which didn't seem to fit at all. I'll admit that "I Hate Myself for Loving You" might have perfectly encapsulated Harley's feelings for Joker, but it's also so, so dated. The best examples of "Girl Power" in music are Joan Jett and Heart? Somebody besides me needs to study up on some more modern music, I think.
It got worse by including an even older James Brown song, "It's a Man's Man's Man's World", but this was covered by a woman, so that I suppose makes lines like "It wouldn't be nothing without a woman or a girl" have some more resonance. And at one point Harley has a dream sequence that's a riff on Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" dance number from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", released in 1953! How many people who were alive in 1953 went out to the movies to see "Birds of Prey"? Most people currently alive probably thought they were doing a parody of Madonna's "Material Girl", which borrowed the same design from that earlier Marilyn picture.
To be fair, I'm looking through the whole soundtrack listing now on IMDB, and there is some more modern music in this movie - tracks from Megan Thee Stallion, Halsey, Doja Cat, Sofi Tukker, Liquits, Kesha, and honestly some of these acts I don't know if they're bands, or solo women, or what - and the version of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" was a very modern cover by Adona, and the version of "Black Betty" was a cover by Spiderbait, so I think maybe I only noticed the songs I was most familiar with, which were from the 1950's and 1980's. I ain't much for the modern music, I guess - but they maybe did a good job of mixing it up, so I'm forced to retract my complaint. (Still, Patsy Cline and Barry White were also in the mix... for who? The senior citizens?)
Also starring Margot Robbie (last seen in "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"), Rosie Perez (last seen in "The Last Thing He Wanted"), Jurnee Smollett-Bell (last seen in "Hands of Stone"), Ewan McGregor (last heard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Chris Messina (last seen in "You've Got Mail"), Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong (last heard in "Onward"), Steven Williams (last seen in "The Trust"), Dana Lee, Francois Chau, Derek Wilson, Matthew Willig (last seen in "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"), Bojana Novakovic (last seen in "I, Tonya"), Charlene Amoia, Paul Lasa, Robert Catrini, David Ury, Daniel Bernhardt (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Ella Mika, with archive footage of Jared Leto (?) (last seen in "Lord of War")
RATING: 7 out of 10 egg sandwiches
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