Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Directed by Cathy Yan
Harley Quinn joins forces with a singer, an assassin and a police detective to help a young girl who had a hit placed on her after she stole a rare diamond from a crime lord.
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What critics say influenced Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Como esta película estuvo pensada desde el vamos para adultos, es decir, con la calificación R, como Deadpool -su primo, pero del Universo Marvel-, mucho han relojeado a la saga con Ryan Reynolds.
It’s a chaotic live-action cartoon with more in common with rival Marvel’s Deadpool than with anything DC has released thus far, even if its dull and somewhat convoluted plot is only a marginal improvement over the story in Suicide Squad.
Then there are times when it seemed like some studio exec said, “Just make it like Deadpool,” and so you’ve got a convoluted timeline with plenty of irreverent narration combined with R-rated language and violence.
Earning its R-rating, the film isn’t as eager as Deadpool to have the audience thank it for that, but there’s still a lot of sharp crunches and red spirts.
The Deadpool films have similar approaches to their antihero, although here the villains’ inherent misogyny gives an edge to Harley’s natural pluck (Winstead is also terrific as a Huntress, a hero that’s all action and struggles with showmanship).
Director Cathy Yan (making what can only be described as her blockbuster debut) and Bumblebee screenwriter Christina Hodson prove themselves to be more than up to the task, as does star-turned-producer Robbie; from its vibrant animated opening to its funhouse fighting finale, Birds of Prey may grind some of the same R-rated, self-referential rails as Deadpool, but it does so at such a spirited speed that it scoots right past many of its own potholes.
Nine times out of ten I was having a blast watching Harley Quinn wreak havoc, while screenwriter Christina Hodson composes a zany narrative that felt like a mix of “Pulp Fiction,” “Lone Wolf and Cub,” and “Scott Pilgrim vs.
Despite being well-intentioned, the bond between the main female heroines comes off a little too topically thick and on-the-nose, so does the Quentin Tarantino-inspired narrative which has the story chopped into fragmented stories ala “Pulp Fiction”.
Aves de Presa es como una ligera mezcla de Deadpool con Pulp Fiction que da como resultado una historia con un montón de acción y humor.
But the idea of chopping the script into fragments was old when Quentin Tarantino borrowed it for Pulp Fiction, and Hodson is no Tarantino when it comes to verbal fireworks; her humor is strictly Deadpool -lite.
Heavily indebted to an adrenalized version of the mix and match, collage-y time structure of “Pulp Fiction”—which the movie feels like it leans on whenever possible—borrowing the smash-and-grab titles sequence ideas and incessant needle drops from “Suicide Squad,” while throwing in a little Joel Schumacher-era “Batman & Robin” absurdity and campy flair in for good measure, “Birds Of Prey” is hyper affected, and a little more than obnoxious in its first half.
Though the film may have taken some notes from the likes of Pulp Fiction and Deadpool , Yan, Hodson, and their cast deliver something that feels fresh, and really entertaining.
Tiene más energía, su composición es más llamativa, la violencia es más gráfica y las escenas de acción tienen el peso y la fluidez de buenas coreografías, cortesía de Chad Stahelski (creador de John Wick ).
Bones crunch and blood flies in brilliantly choreographed, long-take fights that take more than a few cues from John Wick – the best superhero action this side of Civil War’s airport brawl.
El ritmo siempre se mantiene en lo más alto a partir de las intrigas, las escenas de combate, las persecuciones y las traiciones, así como el sello hipercinético e hipnótico que Yan trata de imprimir en cada secuencia (como el choque cuerpo a cuerpo frenético con un escuadrón de enemigos dentro de una atracción del viejo Luna Park en Gotham, coreografiado no por casualidad por Chad Stahelski, director de John Wick ), sin perder tiempo en reflexiones pseudofilosóficas o escenas melodramáticas de redención.
As for the actions sequences (staged by the John Wick stunt team), they are certifiably terrific, Yan and Hodson sprinkling in delightful little character beats throughout the bone-crunching carnage all of which gives each of the five women addition depth that only maked each of them feel even more authentic.
Harley's chaotic and skillful with various surprising weapons, Dinah relies on a kick-heavy fighting style, Helena's brutal but efficient tactics feel almost like something out of John Wick and Montoya's brawler tendencies set up both gags and tension.
Think John Wick with a Legally Blonde vibe.
The fusion of pop brightness and scuzzy exploitation recalls Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films, though the violence is mostly conceptual rather than explicitly gory; the jumps in time are a Tarantino trick, too.
There are visual and stylistic nods to films ranging from “The Warriors” to “Kill Bill.”
In “Birds of Prey,” Harley Quinn is a screw-loose avenger who suggests Uma Thurman in the “Kill Bill” films crossed with Ryan Reynolds in “Deadpool,” with a nod to Juliette Lewis in “Natural Born Killers” delivering that opening diner ass-thrashing to the sounds of L7’s “S—list.”
Adivinaron: a Kill Bill, más que nada al personaje de La novia, el de Uma Thurman.
Seemingly ripped from the pages of a comic book, the film takes a leaf too from the bad girls of punk, rap and grunge, while other influences are easy to spot ( Kill Bill , John Wick ).
Smolett’s Black Canary is giving me a combo of Uma Thurman from Kill Bill and Jim Kelly from Bruce Lee’s international hit Enter The Dragon with a splash of humility and a conscience.
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Following the events of 2016's Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey starts off with our favorite antihero Harley Quinn as she adjusts to life after breaking up with Gotham City's clown prince of crime, the Joker.
It certainly has generated its fair share of buzz, what with Margot Robbie returning to the role of the Clown Princess of Crime after being the only thing anybody liked from Suicide Squad , and with Yan taking the director’s chair on such a large project.
The last time audiences saw Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, she was being freed from Black Gate prison by The Joker (Jared Leto) in David Ayers’s Suicide Squad.
Directed by Cathy Yan and written by Christina Hodson, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey picks up shortly after Suicide Squad wraps: When the Joker throws her out, a newly single Harley, no longer protected by her ex’s famous name (and infamous reputation) becomes the most hunted woman in Gotham.
An inevitability following the breakout success of Robbie’s Quinn in 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” this year’s first comic book film takes her supporting character and places her right in the middle of the action with “Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.”
The changes come from (a) trying to mesh with the previously existing worlds established by Batman v Superman , Squad , and Justice League and (b) serving as easy introductions to the characters.
Unlike Suicide Squad or Justice League , Birds of Prey has a bright, evocative palette.
Después de Suicide Squad y Justice League , el universo extendido DC está entrando en lo que podría considerarse una nueva fase.
The follow-ups, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Justice League,” were laughed at by critics for their pouting powered people, as the series attempted to make superheroes into disillusioned souls.
Like some surreal mashup of Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon , Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy , Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio and Rachel Talalay’s Tank Girl , much of the motion picture moves at such a brazen, unapologetically fevered pace I found it difficult to catch my breath.
She can't and viewers can't either from the madcap dullness of "Birds of Prey," which is reminiscent of 1995's "Tank Girl," another throw-everything-at-the-screen-and-see-what-sticks comic blunder.
Like an updated take on “Tank Girl,” full of painterly color and cartoonish exploits and weirdness seemingly for the sake of weirdness, “Birds of Prey” surrounds itself with eccentric visual flourishes, hoping to generate style for a gathering of personas who have divergent missions and personalities.
When Harley walks into a police station disguised, for no obvious reason, as a 40s-style vamp in a crimson fedora—prior to blasting the place with smoke and glitter—I was reminded of that enterprising but misbegotten early-CGI hybrid of animation and live action comic book adaptation The Mask (1994).
McGregor is obviously delighting in playing a comic book villain with a camp streak, even if the vibe sometimes resembles the cartoonish bad guy played by Peter Greene in The Mask.
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With the notable exception of the Christopher Nolan “Batman” movies with Christian Bale, the continued attempts to mine DC Comics characters for the big screen continues to fail.
Despite a few throwaway references to Batman, the Joker, and the events of the previous film,mostly stands alone.
Harley Quinn has developed from her original Batman: The Animated Series incarnation as the Joker’s moll to that of a full-fledged character in the comics who has left the Joker behind (a few weeks ago she was sitting at the Justice League’s big table).
Her own history comes in a brief, retro-styled animation sequence which effectively establishes Harley as a cartoon character above all else—which essentially she has always been, having been introduced in an animated Batman TV series before being integrated fully into the DC repertoire.
The Birds of Prey are a girl gang from the “Batman” comics, which until now has never included Harley Quinn.
Birds of Prey began life as a spinoff of 2016's Suicide Squad, an abominably bad movie that teamed up a bunch of Batman-adjacent bad guys for a once-in-a-lifetime mission.
Superhero movies like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel may have already delivered strong feminist messages in their stories, but Birds of Prey allows those themes to burst out with anarchic pop-punk relish.
Wonder Woman broke new ground as the first female-led modern superhero blockbuster, Aquaman dove inward to create an entirely new world, Joker was a filmmaker-driven genre expansion disconnected from the shared continuity.