What's going on guys? I'm Tyler and I'm here to let you know that "Birds of Prey
(and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)" is NoPerfectMovie and it
centers around Harley dealing with the downside of being dumped by the Joker-
Yes there is one huge glaring downside which is that: no one can protect her
from the cops or other criminals that he made enemies with, particularly a crime boss
known as Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) but when she finds out that
there are several other women on his radar; Huntress, Renee Montoya, Black Canary
and especially Cassandra Cain, she decides to team up with them in order to survive.
And I gotta say I seem to be one of the only people who was excited about
this movie from the get-go; I loved the trailers, I love the casting,
the fact that they got an indie director to like come into a big-budget movie and
make it their own, and I was really amazed by how awesome the action scenes looked,
and upon having walked out of the movie all those things delivered and
then some, there are flaws and they're the same problems you've probably
heard in every review by now but honestly it was still worth it for me!
The acting was a lot of fun to watch; it features a Gotham City that is
incredibly over-the-top and so are the performances. It's just part of the world
that the writer and director have created, but because these actors have
really good comedic timing they make it work! Margot Robbie as you would expect
was 'fantabulous' as Harley Quinn; she once again nailed the accent, her stunt work
has improved greatly since 'Suicide Squad' (more on that later) and out of all the
other team members in "Birds of Prey" I like the chemistry that she had with
Cassandra Cain the most because they have the most screen time together.
Ella Jay Basco makes a really good feature debut as Cassandra Cain and a
fun little factoid: she is actually the niece of Dante Bosco from "Avatar: The Last Airbender",
"American Dragon" and "Hook"... no real reason to bring it up I just I thought that was cool.
Jurnee Smollett-Bell is probably the most natural and serious of the
'Birds' and it kind of makes sense for her to be that because she has to experience
the more crazier shit on her own and react to it in a certain way that really
makes you feel the stakes of the story and it was necessary to have a 'straight
man' or 'straight woman' whatever the fucking PC term is-in the group in order
to establish that there are really legitimately serious things going on
despite the humorous aspects of the plot so it was nice to feature her as the
straight lead she was as badass as everybody else,
so was Rosie Perez even though she is technically the corniest because her
Bronx accent is actually thicker than Robbie's and she has this really
exaggerated manner of speak that becomes a huge running gag throughout the movie,
but honestly it actually was what made her charming as this stereotypical cop
who's overlooked by everybody else and the movie points out that you've seen
cops like that before and it points out why we root for them in the first place:
Because they're doing the right thing and they will do anything-even break the
law in order to accomplish helping other people. And I got to say Ewan McGregor
as Black Mask and Chris Messina as mr. Zsasz just looked like they were having a blast! They offset each other very nicely with McGregor being the loudmouthed boss,
Messina being the quiet henchman who gives these really exaggerated
expressions to really show that he's sadistic and doesn't like anybody around him,
and I kind of gravitated toward that more than McGregor who was funny for
being just spoiled and pathetic with with the fact that he has everything at
his disposal and he's just such a man-child all the time, but I didn't find
him as creepy as I was hoping or as much as I thought the movie wanted us to feel
because there are a couple scenes where you are supposed to look at what he's
doing and go 'Holy shit! What the fuck are you doing?!' but there are two things that
I think could have been improved to make him like a menacing and funny villain:
1) I would have liked him to see him do like more hands-on stuff when he's being
really fucked up because that's more of a Messina thing as mr. Zsasz and that's
another reason why I gravitated to that more. And the second reason is for a guy
who's called 'Black Mask' he probably only wears it like
two or three times and they don't really even do anything with it. But now on to
the main event of this movie-the thing that I think everyone should see in the
theatre just for it: the action! The action is fucking amazing-especially two fights;
one in a police station and another in the funhouse that you keep seeing in the
trailer-my job was on the floor the entire time during those moments!
Props to Cathy Yan as the director, all of the lead actors and their stunt doubles
because there are clearly some shots where all the main leads are doing their
own punches and kicks and everything like that, the cinematography, the editing;
they all feature practical set pieces where the actors use everything around
them as a weapon to their fullest advantage! No shaky cam whatsoever!
No quick cutting whatsoever! This is not only a big accomplishment for a comic
book movie, for someone who's just getting into big-budget movies but just
as a movie in general! It's becoming a cliche to say something like this is
"John Wick" level action, but it's true and the director of "John Wick" Chad Stahelski did have some behind the scenes aspects of it on his part he was
second unit director for the reshoots he does have a cameo in the movie just like he
had a cameo in the first "John Wick" and honestly I don't know how much he
contributed to it but honestly it was well worth it!
It really doesn't matter who contributed to it it really matters what we see on
screen and what we saw on screen was outstanding and made me forgive any of
the real flaws that I have with the movie! And the main flaws like everybody
else says is with the script and how there really isn't that much character
depth to it, and I know most of us go to this movie not really to see that but to
see the spectacle of it and the spectacle of it was really good; Cathy
Yan has a really nice style, she likes to incorporate flashbacks and present-day
in like what appear to be single takes and she does a really good job with that,
it has this very self referential style of narration with Margot Robbie that I
wasn't entirely anticipating because I'm not
a big narration fan but honestly it wasn't... it wasn't like pretending to be deep
narration it was just like stream of consciousness just blurting out whatever
she had on her mind. That being said the script really is just exposition
overload and it's not that the characters are given like no backstories
whatsoever, it's just they're told through dialogue and standard coverage
as opposed to us really living through the experiences. They try to make us live
the experiences with flashback montages and they were cool to watch but they
didn't really make me feel the more tragic elements to it because these
characters all have tragic paths that you could like weave together and make
it feel like "Oh they all have been through similar shit they should really
get together" and I didn't really feel like them banding together was because
they had a lot in common but was more of a basic need, it was so cool it was still
fun to watch but I would have liked maybe a little meat on it especially for
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress because I... don't get me wrong she was
really good in the movie and I like the sense of humor that they give where she
tries to be the serious one and fails miserably, but she has some of the more
tragic elements to her past that kind of overshadow other characters who are in
the movie a lot longer than her especially Renee Montoya who is just a
standard cop or Cassandra Cain who's a standard orphan thief but if I gotta be
honest I kind of like the orphan thief trope for whatever reason. I don't know I
just kind of find it fun sometimes. But in the long run "Birds of Prey" is a 3.5/5
movie with 6/5 elements; the action scenes and the
choreography and the fluidity of the camerawork and editing was worth the
price ticket alone especially with the talented and dedicated actors: Margot Robbie,
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosie Perez,
Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco, Ewan McGregor, Chris Messina-they were all
really good even though they didn't have a ton going for it and for that reason
I'm gonna give "Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)...
well you already heard me grade it so fuck it... by the way if you're
wondering do not wait around for the credits there's really nothing to wait
for, trust me. Guys, thanks as always for watching, be sure to let me know what you
thought a "Birds of Prey" if you've already seen it, and be sure to LIKE and subscribe! Take care.