mostly positive reviews. Starring Margot Robbie as the titular clown princess of crime, Birds of Prey follows Harley Quinn after a messy break-up with the Joker, as circumstance throws her into conflict with the villainous Black Mask - and into cahoots with some other ladies looking for emancipation.
Robbie made her debut as Harley Quinn in David Ayer's nominated for a staggering eleven Oscars. With Birds of Prey out in theaters this weekend and the Oscars ceremony on Sunday evening, this could be a very triumphant weekend for Warner Bros. and DC Films.
While Birds of Prey's 89% (as of the time of writing) score on appreciating Birds of Prey for what it is: good, dirty fun.
"Birds of Prey... really is the funniest comic book film since the first Deadpool from 2016... [It] moves at a breakneck pace with a dry, totally unsentimental sense of humor, and it never gets caught up in cliched morals or weighty lessons. The movie also has a punky, washed-out look and harks back to a lot of long-gone pop culture: Harley looks like a No Doubt-era Gwen Stefani, and her run-down fun-house lair is a dead ringer for the villain’s hunting ground in The Man With the Golden Gun."
"Birds of Prey [is] light on psychology and devoid of prestige, it’s a slab of R-rated hard candy that refuses to take anything, least of all itself, too seriously... It’s all as tasty, chewy and disposable as bubble gum."
"[Yan]lets her heroine’s mania guide her through a story that’s scrappy, weird and ultimately fun as hell... Birds of Prey isn’t interested in hitting all the usual superhero movie beats. It works because we haven’t seen this story a thousand times before, and because it leaves behind the grim-dark posturing of Suicide Squad. It’s nice to see a joker who doesn’t take herself too seriously."
"Birds of Prey... is a giddy treat of an R-rated comic-book movie, borrowing elements from inspirations as disparate as 9 to 5, Bugs Bunny and Modesty Blaise to create an adventure that tweaks its genre familiarity with delightful bursts of anarchy and wit... The film’s various elements work in wonderful concert to keep the momentum brisk but still grounded in a stylized version of human empathy."
"There’s a strange tension to Birds of Prey that never fully abates, a resistance to its core ideas that often comes up short. However, the buzzwords still apply: It’s a girl-powered, earnestly feminist superhero movie with big, implausible action sequences and outsized personalities, and while it never quite reaches that potential, it does begin to map out a fresh path to the world-worn arena of superhero narratives. It may not be the promised total emancipation (at least not yet), but it is fantabulous in its own way."
As mentioned, not all critics were on board with Birds of Prey's brand of emancipation. Negative reviews run the gamut from critics for whom the madcap blend of violence and color just didn't work, to one reviewer who outright hated it.
"Birds of Prey... is more than horrible. It should not exist. Money should never have been raised for it. The screenplay should never have been filmed. Margot Robbie shouldn’t have produced it. She certainly shouldn’t have starred in it. It’s just a terrible thing to inflict on audiences, who, after all, didn’t hurt anyone and just hoped to have a nice time."
"It never settles on how f**ked-up it wants its fucked-up protagonist to be. The film is a hard R, mostly due to violence as well as language and the fact that Harley powers up for a fight by happily, if accidentally, indulging in some blow. But you can feel the feverish stress of the calculus it is constantly performing with regard to morality and, maybe more important, likability."
"If you found yourself internally screaming for Ryan Reynolds to shut the hell up during Deadpool, then the relentless, zany narration of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will likely send you gibbering and ruined towards the emergency exit after, oh, 23 seconds."
As with most movies, the best way to judge Birds of Prey is to see it for yourself. The film is tracking for a strong opening weekend box office and, with little competition standing in its way over the next month or more, has the potential for strong legs - especially if word of mouth is as positive as the reviews.
