jwb0323

Is there a Jared Leto cameo? Not that I care I just recall rumors

dex14

No. They extremely sparsely use footage from SS or quick cuts of scenes that barely show the Joker (stand in) from the side or back. He is basically absent from the film.

Why So Blu?

Just got back from it and it was fun as hell. Definitely better than Suicide Squad, by leaps and bounds. The hard R violence was great! Saw it in Atmos and it sounded phenomenal.

I wonder if we'll get an extended or director's cut? I'll definitely be getting the 4K disc.

Who's the shithead that gave it a 1-star in the poll? He must hate women or something. What a jackass.

EDIT - Whoops. There's egg on my face. I figured it was one of the anti-strong female superhero league.

Brack

Liked it enough, it felt like it dragged at times and I didn’t think much of the story, but maybe that wasn’t the point. I still mildly liked it.

MR Round

I watched this yesterday and gave it two stars. I liked the acting from the girls but I hoped for more focus on the Birds Of Prey and less Harley. Mcgregor who im a huge fan of did good but felt he could have been in a better movie then this. The movie as a whole seemed too short. Its an okay follow up to Suicide Squad and i hope theres a sequel that focuses more on the others or has no Harley at all.

robin2099

Not really sure what to think of this one. Something about it just seemed lacking, but I can't put my finger on it. You can see it tries really hard to be like Deadppool but where Deadpool just embraced being zany and over the top, this one seems like it wants to be zany, but at the same time be serious as well without fully embracing it. I kept thinking that a better plot for the movie would be to make it like The Warriors. I still think Margot is fine as Harley but was not really a fan of anyone else in the movie.It doesn't help that Huntress and Canary don't wear costumes until the very end, and even then with the exception of Huntress they aren't very recognizable versions of them. I thought Ewen Mcgregor way overacted in this and was terrible. Action scenes were good even though it's a bit unrealistic seeing Harley take out entire groups of 200lb men with her martial arts skills we never knew she had.
I'll give it a 2/5. Probably my least favorite DC Universe movie by far. It's just the textbook definition of meh. Looks like its massively underperforming too, so I bet they are kicking themselves for not making it PG-13 so Harley's younger fan base can see it.

RichC2

It's coming in around $10m below expectations so definitely lagging. Considering there are no real well known popular characters in it aside from Quinn that isn't super surprising. They keep advertising it as a movie about Harley Quinn with no hint toward plot.

Suicide Squad got to advertise the hell out of the Joker, this didn't even have that going for it.

stingermck

I mean, isn't that every action movie? Does a character need to show off their black belt first?

Mike86

I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. I think this is one of the better recent DC films. Fun humor, good action, and the acting was good all around. I didn’t love Robbie as most in Suicide Squad, but thought she was quite good here. Story is kind of thin and cookie cutter, but I found it fun to watch all around.

My only minor issue is that this really could have been just a Harley Quinn movie as the Birds of Prey feel kind of tacked on.

faust69

Very enjoyable. Interesting direction and the cast is very good. Story was basic quest and protect but it’s how something is told not just that it is told. I did find Renee Montoya superfluous but otherwise enjoyed every character. Huntress and Black Canary were standouts and I thought Margo did a great job here. Also really like Obi-Wan Jesus’ take on Black Mask. Very childish and sadistic in one package.

Overall, everyone I know has really liked it but agree the marketing for it has been bat guano. The trailers have been mediocre and the embargo lifted way too late to advertise the good reviews. WB needs more confidence in its films.

Orbi-Wan Techno

From my review page ORBI-WAN GOES TO THE MOVIES:

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (R) - Just about what you'd expect when you give a popular nut-job of a comic character free-rein in an R-rated environment...

How far we've come....

Back in the 90's, the most popular afternoon animated program was Batman: The Animated Series. In 1992, Harleen Quinzel, a former prison psychiatrist who fell hard for the Joker, was introduced, and became his right hand woman and love interest. The character was immediately a fan-favorite, and in 1993, she became a legit comic book sensation. She's been featured in multiple DC comic series and animated films, now has her own R-rated animated series on DC's streaming service and, as played by Margot Robbie, shared star billing with Will Smith's Deadshot and Jay Leto's Joker in the under-cooked "Suicide Squad". (James Gunn to the rescue of this franchise!)

Despite "Birds of Prey" leading the title, this movie is most definitely Harley's story. The majority of the film is told from her perspective, despite some great work by co-stars Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winslet, Jurnee Smollet-Bell, and Ella Jay Basco.

Harley and Joker are on the outs, however she hasn't told anyone yet because she's still enjoying the peripheral perks of her relationship with the Clown Prince of Crime. One evening, she makes the drunken decision to finally unshackle herself from Joker's reputation by destroying the major symbol of their relationship - the factory where she voluntarily went through the same skin-bleaching, attitude-altering process that created her Puddin'.

Despite the fact she is now determined to stand on her two feet, she finds herself on the outs with a Joker-collaborator, the insanely sadistic Roman Sionis (a particularly unpleasant and unsettling Ewan McGregor), AKA Black Mask. She's not the only with a beef with Sionis. There's Detective Renee Montoya (Perez), and singer with a killer voice Dinah Lance (Smollet-Bell) AKA Black Canary. Joining this group are Helena Bertinelli (Winslet) AKA Cross-Bow Killer, uh, The Huntress, and Cassandra Cain (Basco), a teen pickpocket who becomes a bit of a protege under Harley's protection.

I'll give "Birds of Prey" some props. The action sequences are exciting and spectacular - two standouts are Harley's non-lethal assault on Gotham City Police Department as she attempts to spring Cassandra from custody, and the climax where the Birds of Prey must fight through an army of masked goons at an abandoned amusement park.

Also, the set design is spectacular, the comedic bits can be very funny, and Harley's stream of consciousness narrative demands the audience just strap in and go along for the ride.

And please keep in mind, this is an R-rated DC film. While there is little to nothing in the way of sexual content, the F-bomb is spoken with alarming frequency by nearly every character in the film, and the violence is very prominent, though much of the bloodiest stuff is actually left to the imagination.

Like last year's "Joker", folks are going to take away from "Birds of Prey AKA Harley Showcase" whatever they want. Yes I found parts of it very entertaining and inventive, and other parts rather unpleasant and off-putting. And like Joker, I am finding it hard to pin an actual rating to this one. But that's just me....

MID- AND AFTER-CREDIT SCENES - Once the credits start rolling, you can leave. Sticking around gets you nothing but a disappointing fake-out.

LIKE and SHARE the review page ORBI-WAN GOES TO THE MOVIES with family and friends!

ORBI-WAN GOES TO THE MOVIES is protected under CREATIVE COMMONS.

DJariya

https://deadline.com/2020/02/birds-o...ie-1202853768/

It's looking like this will open at $33M, which is not good. The budget is around $80M not counting marketing. So this probably needs to make $300-400M+ to not be in the red. That's going to be tough with a 50-60% drop week 2.

I admit before I saw this, the early trailers and marketing sucked and I was very lukewarm on it. The early marketing probably hurt this.

Abob Teff

Before I finish reading (and before I see the movie) ... ^That has to be one of your best lines ever, Orbi!

Draven

Fucking loved it. Robbie owns the role and she’s a ton of fun to watch. Loved the action, the laugh out loud moments and the general asskickery throughout. The entire police station sequence was fantastic - loved her grenade launcher with all of the different ammunition and once she got a baseball bat Jaw-dropping fight choreography in this one.

Day one purchase when it comes out.

The Antipodean

whoever thought up the title for this needs to be fired.

robin2099

I've been thinking about why this underperformed so much(underperforming by $20 million is a lot), and after some thought here are my top reasons why:

1. The trailers: The initial trailer for this was pretty bad and did not really do a good job on selling you what the movie was about. Even the second trailer did not really sell you on what it was about, or even why to go see it.

2. Losing the comic fans: The movie did a lot to go and change the look and myth of the characters in it and in the process lost the comic book fans. Comic book fans want to see adaptations of the characters they read, and yet again this was basically another example of a studio seemingly being embarrassed to embrace the costumes and the origins of the characters. Why is Cassandra Cain a juvenile? Why is Black Mask only wearing the mask once and acting like a goofy gay comic relief character? Why do we not get Huntress or Black Canary in something similar to their comic book costumes?

3. The rating: Unlike Deadpool. who's fanbase was primarily older males, Harley has a big contingent of fans who are teen and preteen girls. Making this an R-rated movie(which it had no reason to be in the first place) essentially kept all of them out and limited the fan base for a movie which really did not need to be R. It's hard to make movies about certain characters and make them have PG-13 ratings(Joker, Punisher, Blade) but Harley is not one of those characters.

Mr. Flix

This was the big turn-off for me from the first trailer. I've been a HUGE Birds of Prey fan (and a fan of Huntress in particular) since I was a young teen. My ticket money should have been a lock for this movie. But when I watched the first trailer, my thoughts were: Where is Huntress? Where is Black Canary? Where is Oracle? If there's no way of even telling that the movie is a BoP movie with the exception of the title, then something is very wrong. DC still seems so averse to making their movie characters look like their comic counterparts, even after Marvel proving time after time that you can do it without the characters provoking secondhand embarrassment.

You'd think it would be a no-brainer that if you're going to do a BoP movie, you'd make sure the characters are recognizable to the core fan base for the property. If not, then why bother? If you don't think there are enough die-hard BoP fans to make a BoP movie, then don't make a BoP movie. Just make it a Harley Quinn movie and call it a day. Honestly, I wonder if it would've made more money just calling it Harley Quinn and creating new supporting characters to surround her with. Instead, they went the route the did and likely alienated a ton of BoP fans.

Paff

Bob_Bobbson

Birds of Prey Changes Title At Movie Theaters

https://comicbook.com/dc/2020/02/10/...-harley-quinn/

It's Edge Of Tomorrow all over again, but they didn't even wait for the home video release this time.

The Antipodean

I wonder when the last time a movie's flop was blamed so extensively on its title... (I didn't think Edge of Tomorrow was an awful title, btw)

Mike86

I mean the new title is more accurate. It should have probably just been that to begin with.

stingermck

I had a feeling they were going to change the title. Years ago WB did something similar to Superman Returns. Week 2 had all different posters trying to make it look more appealing.

Why So Blu?

Live Die Repeat Harley Quinn.

Mike86

Did they? I don’t remember that with Superman Returns.

tonyc3742

I saw this tonight - apparently as they were making the decision to change the name (which makes sense).
I'm not sure what I thought about it. I really liked Margot Robbie/Harley, Huntress was OK if a little flat (toward the end it seemed like they were hinting toward the "social anxiety due to being away from society for so long", but it was late in coming.) And Canary was cool till the end - wait a minute, how/why can she do that? (from the movie perspective, if you're coming in with no knowledge of the character.)
Like Robin2099, I feel like something was just missing, or off kilter, or flat. It did have the disadvantage of having to introduce 4 new characters with backstories etc, especially since they were changed from the comics.
The fight scenes were awesomely choreographed.
I actually liked Suicide Squad, I'd put this one around there. It definitely was no Deadpool.
I think a 3 of 5 from me.