if your character has a somewhat casual relationship with reality then sometimes
over-the-top ridiculousness is exactly what it's called
for and never mind the fight continuity because it's suicide squad the editing
is bewildering from start to finish anyway also somersaults are fun whee!
i'm jill bearup i'm a stage combatant which means i pretend to fight people for theatrical purposes
and this is one villainous scene Harley's fight scene in the elevator is awesome and also kind
of not good but i lay most of the blame for that on the editing and personally i forgive the scene
all of its flaws and the fact that it doesn't really make a lick of sense because it's just such
a perfect character moment and tells us so much about Harley both in terms of her personality and
in terms of her fighting style which is to say a mix of the ruthlessly practical and the needlessly
theatrical Harley has several other fight scenes in suicide squad and many excellent ones in birds
of prey but i liked this scene so much that i grabbed a fight choreographer friend and gave
that elevator flip a a go [laughing]
don't try that at home you're probably not insured for it but it is slightly relevant for later now
the plot of suicide squad to this point goeth thusly harley has been recruited along with a
whole bunch of other characters that i mostly didn't care about to rescue someone from a city
that evil goddess witch enchantress and her giant evil brother are currently ensconced in
you know as you do her actual plan is that she's going to escape when joker gives her a signal and
so she's secretly checking the secret phone she's been given to find out when he's going to stay at
your rescue for the sake of expedience and also because harley isn't much one for forward planning
or risk assessment she decides to get in the lift to go and rescue whoever's at the top of the tower
everyone else is somehow extremely good at running and so they beat her to the top
so we can all stare at margot robbie's butt i guess but whatever in the lift elevator as
you please she gets attacked by some putties the fact that the first one seemingly dropped through
the solid ceiling is a bit odd but go with it maybe there's a hatch up there or something
after she dispatches that one the second one crashes through the window and off we go again
the gun is now nowhere to be seen presumably she's just dropped it she gets punched in the face she
ducks the next punch and hits back without much effect she does what looks a bit like a judo
throw and then tries to hit it with the baseball bat more on that in a minute she fails is grabbed
from behind struggles walks up the elevator wall and somersaults behind the creature smacks it with
the baseball bat blows her hair out of her face and scene the continuity is variable to say the
least we see her in the elevator holding the baseball bat and then cut away and when we cut
back she has presumably put it down because she's now checking her phone with both hands
when the second baddie crashes through the window we see her fall back but we don't see where the
gun goes when she throws the baddie the angle looks a bit weird but whatever will go with it
she grabs the bat the foley thinks she hit but the monster doesn't react at all and then his arms are
around her and then its arms are nowhere to be seen as she does her wall walk and somersault
of course the reason that the monster's arms are nowhere to be seen is because this is a
partner assisted back somersault making it much more doable dozens of times in a day without
wires than a regular somersault we can see this from the production still which is taken from
the side where you can see the stunt monster's hands supporting margot robbie as she walks up
the wall so she can effectively turn herself over his shoulder she said in an interview
that they just shot that scene for 10 hours the previous day and today she couldn't move her neck
i practiced for about two and a half hours with Duncan and yeah ow it's very hard on the neck
because every time you do it you effectively have to roll your neck over your partner's shoulder
it's quite bony i also had some costume issues with the jacket being really slippery but as
you can see from the production still the stunt monster has his hands underneath the jacket and
on her top which is presumably a lot less slippery but that is a whole other topic it's interesting
to me that it's shown in three different shots the walk up the wall the walk across the ceiling and
the landing and presumably that so they can get the best possible take for each section but given
that it was a real thing that she really did i feel like even cutting that down to just two shots
would have showcased it better frequent cutting in a fight scene or a stunt just makes it look less
impressive than it could have been i think but even with all of the continuity issues and the
stupid shoes and the fact that she was wearing underpants basically which were so small that
they couldn't fit a regular harness underneath there they had to build a custom harness for her
i still really love this scene in a tell us about yourself dr quinzel kind of way basically
because it mixes the disparate fragments of her personality so well harley's number one priority
in suicide squad is mr j who frankly i could take or leave but sure whatever her fight with the
first baddie is brief she punches it in the used to be a face not much happens she shoots it in the
head but one of the things we reinforce with this little sequence and what comes afterwards is that
she doesn't have what you might call a typical fear response we've seen this already in earlier
scenes with harley which get a little oh man you're six foot four she's a tiny little girl!
interesting but there are very few times in the film when she actually
seems afraid and the only one i can really think of that stands out is when the joker
drives them both into the water Puddin? Puddin I can't SWIM!
but even then when batman comes to rescue her she fights him and has to be knocked out instead of
just letting him help her and so in this scene she shoots the eldritch abomination in the head and
fixes her hair and when we get to the second part of the fight the second part of her style comes
through more clearly the first part is efficient the second part requires more creativity it
hits her it tries to hit her again and she ducks because she's fast she punches back which moves it
and she uses that to get to the corner presumably where her bat is in order to throw it and throws
require technique so we know that she's skilled as well as fast but it's up by the time she gets
the bat so she swings and misses i honestly don't know what's meant to happen here because there is
a sound effect but there's no reaction i think there's just an extra sound effect if the thing
reacted to a punch in the face you'd think it would react to being hit with a baseball bat
especially as being hit with a baseball bat is what kills it mere moments later never mind
swinging a miss and she turns with the swing so it grabs her from behind and here's my favorite part
the part that is so in character and yet makes absolutely no sense at all the monster has her
by the waist she has a bat but her arms are pinned so she can't use it and then her arms are suddenly
free as she walks up the wall and turns over now practically speaking we know why her arms are free
but continuity wise the thing is though i kind of don't care because it's harley quinn and while
she probably doesn't make the list of my top 50 fictional characters you have an incredible amount
of leeway in things that you can do with her because she's mad as a box of frogs no practically
minded super heroine would wear 12 centimeter spike heels into combat no they just get the
hideous wedges to disguise the fact they're in heels and this is becoming a meme now so i'm going
to stop Jill Bearup likes swords hates wedges moving on because it's harley you can kind of
kind of get away with those ridiculous shoes i'd personally have gone for something a bit more punk
but since the entire outfit seems to be designed around skin flashing sexiness non-stiletto
boots would have made it easier for the actual actors and stunt people to fight and do stunts
in that's all i'm saying as a fighter harley is fearless but she's also completely unpredictable
i mean is she going to be petty [thump thump thump]
hey hey come on what i saw it move see it flinched i think is she going to be ruthless
[bang!] is she going to be needlessly dramatic
you don't know and that's kind of the fun of it you don't know and in this film where all
of the editing is absolutely bewildering the fight scenes conceptually are mostly
pretty good the ending not so much and like i said the editing is just yeah but conceptually
i really like this scene because it sells you harley quinn really well if someone tells you
what they like in fights is realism above all ask them how they feel about this scene because
realism is wonderful but i would argue that it's not the goal or at least shouldn't be the ultimate
goal in fight scenes realism is just one of the tools in your toolbox and when you mess
with the fundamental features of reality too much things stop feeling plausible and that's not good
this is one of the problems with wonder woman 1984 a film which makes less sense every time you think
about it but sometimes a little unnecessary theatricality is just what the doctor ordered
pun fully intended i did not enjoy this movie at all but this scene and harley made it much
more bearable i hope she gets lots of screen time in the new movie and also a better costume
and if you'd like to make your own contribution to the one villainous scene playlist then there
are details in the description for now if you'd like to see a breakdown of another movie fight
scene well we've got nightcrawler in the white house to the right and if you also have strong
opinions on shoes while fighting boy are you in the right place see you next time