First of all, I want one of those breakfast sandwiches. Specifically one of those sandwiches.
Now, the second thing that someone notices after the sandwich, Margot Robbie is having a great time as Harley Quinn, a role she was born for and the byproduct is good energy throughout the movie.
As the story unfolds, Harley Quinn just broke up with Joker which made her vulnerable due to the lack of “protection” the name of Joker offered her. In a state of being an awful person and with a lot of people wanting Harley dead, the movie does a good job building both Harley as a character and the plot as a story.
One thing to look out for is the back and forth of the storytelling in the beginning of the movie. It is a well known trick to keep the viewer interested but most of the times at least some confusion is created. This time the trick is executed flawlessly with no confusion and a lot of freshness, developing beautifully each character.
On the other hand, the other ugly hand unfortunately, I have to ask the movie why the group of women making the Birds of Prey were kept separated until the very last of the movie. Come on now, it is not an origin story but at least make it worth the title. Anyway, I will not yammer a lot about this because all women had interesting backstories throughout the movie.
Yes, here the humor does work in it is own way! Also do you know what else works? The bad guys (Black Mask) BFF… I mean right hand… Ugh… Rephrasing. Ewan McGregor playing the Black Mask is a great villain. Not the one with intimidating superpowers but he fills charismatically the role of the villain. As a rich mafia lord, Black Mask has a henchman (or boyfriend), Victor Zsasz played wonderfully by Chris Messina making the viewer feel that every side-character matters.
Having already cleared that the plot has no major holes, it must be pointed out that it is a shame having only one superhuman appear in the movie. Yes, Black Canari (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) has a superpower used only once, in only one scene, only in the end, only unexpectedly. This opens a whole box of questions, with the major ones being why not do it sooner and did the movie just throw one superpower to relate it to the general theme of the DC universe?
Movie review conclusions
No argue about that, it was a smart and funny script. The movie tried really hard to break any stereotypes and cliches, with a very good result on that. It is not perfect but surely is fun and original.
Favourite quotes
- “Harley: Know what a harlequin is? Dinah: Janky-ass clown with bad eye makeup? Harley: Oof! Ouch! A harlequin’s role is to serve. An audience. A master. You know, a harlequin’s nothing without a master. And no one gives two fucks who we are beyond that.”
- “Roman: You’re here because… Harley: Oh, God, stop. You’re going to do that thing where you open up a weird-ass case of torture devices, while inexplicably detailing your master plan, and how I don’t fit into it. Roman: I’m building a better… Harley: Seriously, you don’t have to. Really! You’re building a criminal empire because daddy kicked you out of Janus Corp. And you think this is a big fuck you, but in actuality it’s a very misguided attempt to win back his respect. I get it. You’re really not as complicated as you think. Roman: And you’re really not as clever as you think, because now I’m going to slice your… Harley: Oh, Jesus Christmas! Now you’re going to say that you want to kill me to set an example. Christ, you’re boring.”
- “Harley: Psychologically speaking, vengeance rarely brings the catharsis we hope for.”