Birds Of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.) (15.)
Directed by Cathy Yan.
Starring Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez and Ella Jay Basco. 109 mins.
All we are saying is Give JaredLeto'sJoker a chance. Now, probably much like yourself, I didn't hold his interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime in Suicide Squad in very high regard and personally don't have any great feelings about the actor one way or the other. But, come on, let's have some decency here, nobody deserves what has happened to Leto's Joker. First of all, having apparently put a lot of work into the role, he found himself largely cut from the finished version. Scapegoating is always an ugly business but to be singled out as the weakest link in that chain of fools is a shattering indignity. If anything, his absence was one of the chief problems: if you came to see a Joker film you want to see a Joker, even if it isn't much of a Joker. And then, after all the unfavourable comparisons with Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, to have Joaquin Phoenix come along and win an Oscar for playing the same role in a modestly budgeted but zeitgeist capturing film just a few years later, is beyond cruel.
Now, Warners Bros have compounded the indignity by making a film centred on Harley Quinn, his girlfriend, and made her leaving him the starting point of the narrative. It probably would've just made things even worse to invite him back just to get dumped, but my sense of fair play is outraged.
Margot Robbie's performance as Quinn was one of the few elements of Suicide Squad deemed tolerable, though I reckon a few hundred female performers could have made a similar impact in that costume. In Suicide Squad the character wasn't equal to the attention she was afforded; she only seemed to be getting ahead in the world of villainy on account of whose girlfriend she was. This Harley though is a superior creation; softened just a little but more interesting for it. Here the contradictory nature of her character – a whiny, alcoholic mess who is needy and scatty, yet capable of intricately choreographed feats of gymnastic brutality – is appealing. Robbie's seems to have stolen much of Leto's Joker act, and then made it work for her much more than it did for him.
In Birds of Prey, she heads up an all-female ensemble who get involved in some low-level criminal ventures in Gotham, motivated by a desire to thwart the machination of MacGregor's camp gangster boss. The other Bird of Prey members are some of the thinnest characters to feature in one of these types of movies but the cast is much stronger than the roles they are given. Though it's probably only there to try and make up for the dullness of the main title, a film slipping the phrase Fantabulous Emancipation into its subsidiary title is making big claims for itself. It promises something freewheeling, wacky and subversively unconventional. And the film is true to its title. So far, most DC comic book movies have been ugly cash splurges, money throwing exercises where it was no longer possible to tell the good from the bad. This though is a much more modest endeavour without any save-the-world extravaganzas. Instead, you get a simpler piece jazzed up with a time-jumping narrative, voice-overs, fantasy sequences, a flashy soundtrack, 4th wall breaks and even a brief musical interlude. It's a zippy little number too, with barely a moment's rest in that tight little running time. This is the closest DC have come to a Deadpool.
It's also incredibly violent; bone-crushingly, wincingly violent. Apart from 18 certificate entries like Sin City and Watchmen, it's the most brutal superhero film yet, stretching that 15 certificate to the limit. Last year, certain commentators threw slightly hysterical hissy fits about Joker celebrating and validating incel rage. So what will they make of a film made mostly by women that is smart, slick, resourceful and entertaining but also bleak, cynical, shallow and callous? What's the value of equality in a culture that is hooked on eulogising and revering sociopaths?
Directed by Cathy Yan.
Starring Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez and Ella Jay Basco. 109 mins.
All we are saying is Give JaredLeto'sJoker a chance. Now, probably much like yourself, I didn't hold his interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime in Suicide Squad in very high regard and personally don't have any great feelings about the actor one way or the other. But, come on, let's have some decency here, nobody deserves what has happened to Leto's Joker. First of all, having apparently put a lot of work into the role, he found himself largely cut from the finished version. Scapegoating is always an ugly business but to be singled out as the weakest link in that chain of fools is a shattering indignity. If anything, his absence was one of the chief problems: if you came to see a Joker film you want to see a Joker, even if it isn't much of a Joker. And then, after all the unfavourable comparisons with Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, to have Joaquin Phoenix come along and win an Oscar for playing the same role in a modestly budgeted but zeitgeist capturing film just a few years later, is beyond cruel.
Now, Warners Bros have compounded the indignity by making a film centred on Harley Quinn, his girlfriend, and made her leaving him the starting point of the narrative. It probably would've just made things even worse to invite him back just to get dumped, but my sense of fair play is outraged.
Margot Robbie's performance as Quinn was one of the few elements of Suicide Squad deemed tolerable, though I reckon a few hundred female performers could have made a similar impact in that costume. In Suicide Squad the character wasn't equal to the attention she was afforded; she only seemed to be getting ahead in the world of villainy on account of whose girlfriend she was. This Harley though is a superior creation; softened just a little but more interesting for it. Here the contradictory nature of her character – a whiny, alcoholic mess who is needy and scatty, yet capable of intricately choreographed feats of gymnastic brutality – is appealing. Robbie's seems to have stolen much of Leto's Joker act, and then made it work for her much more than it did for him.
In Birds of Prey, she heads up an all-female ensemble who get involved in some low-level criminal ventures in Gotham, motivated by a desire to thwart the machination of MacGregor's camp gangster boss. The other Bird of Prey members are some of the thinnest characters to feature in one of these types of movies but the cast is much stronger than the roles they are given. Though it's probably only there to try and make up for the dullness of the main title, a film slipping the phrase Fantabulous Emancipation into its subsidiary title is making big claims for itself. It promises something freewheeling, wacky and subversively unconventional. And the film is true to its title. So far, most DC comic book movies have been ugly cash splurges, money throwing exercises where it was no longer possible to tell the good from the bad. This though is a much more modest endeavour without any save-the-world extravaganzas. Instead, you get a simpler piece jazzed up with a time-jumping narrative, voice-overs, fantasy sequences, a flashy soundtrack, 4th wall breaks and even a brief musical interlude. It's a zippy little number too, with barely a moment's rest in that tight little running time. This is the closest DC have come to a Deadpool.
It's also incredibly violent; bone-crushingly, wincingly violent. Apart from 18 certificate entries like Sin City and Watchmen, it's the most brutal superhero film yet, stretching that 15 certificate to the limit. Last year, certain commentators threw slightly hysterical hissy fits about Joker celebrating and validating incel rage. So what will they make of a film made mostly by women that is smart, slick, resourceful and entertaining but also bleak, cynical, shallow and callous? What's the value of equality in a culture that is hooked on eulogising and revering sociopaths?
