The Birds of Prey Movie

I hate movies in the DCU, which constitutes all this Justice League continuity garbage. They had potential, but they squandered it when they turned Suicide Squad into a PG-13 plotless piece of shit. Somehow, that movie made Harley Quinn an icon. Maybe it's because Margot Robbie is sexy? Maybe it's because comic superfans have a raging hard-on for the character? Either way, that movie revitalized her notoriety and deemed a sequel/spin-off as a necessary endeavor. Why? Because why not? The DCU has nothing good going for it, so why not make another gamble?

When this movie came out in theaters, I was bad-mouthing it. I knew it would be a stupid shallow piece of junk just like the last one, so I hated on it and I hated on it hard. Of course, the DC streaming service put out the animated Harley Quinn cartoon and that was a refreshing change of pace. It's Batman: The Animated series, but for perverted adults. What's not to love? With my newfound appreciation for this tired fetishistic character, I decided to give the movie a shot. I'm not always a naysayer. Just most of the time.

The movie begins with Harley trying to eat a breakfast sandwich. And my God, what a sandwich! It's such a good looking sandwich that I've decided right off the bat that I sympathize with her character when she goes through the traumatic experience of losing said sandwich. It's an overlying arc throughout the movie of the little things she loses, such as her sandwich, and her hyena, and her trust in Asian cooks. Some things escape us, but we persevere beyond the loss of our lovers, and dignity, and sandwiches...

Ewan McGregor also makes this movie a lot of fun. He takes a relatively underutilized primary villain and makes him all gay and misogynistic. You can tell he had fun with the role, and so did Margot. She apparently did a lot of her own stunts, so kudos to her.

This movie isn't deep. It's not original. It's not going to change your life, but for what it was, I didn't hate it like I thought I would. I got a few laughs out of it and the fight scenes were okay. Not overly feminist, and in my opinion, a slight step in the right direction.