There is an unassailable feeling of gleeful liberation in one of the posters of the Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), where Harley (Margot Robbie), big and imposing over the entire cast, swings a baseball bat across the frame. One can almost hear the crack of an unfortunate goon’s skull from off the screen. The girl seems happy, content and... bonkers.

Her euphoric madness is almost infectious. In that one instant, something gives in within you. You want her to swing that bat again, cracking another baddie’s skull. At that moment, this girl can do no wrong.

And then she does, and becomes a part of this movie.

As a movie, Birds of Prey is trying very hard to match the zaniness one perceives from its title. It really, at times desperately, wants you to believe that it is a unique, pizzazz-y pro-feminist vigilante-superhero-girl-team movie that dares to be different.

Birds of Prey wants you to believe that it’s a unique, pizzazz-y pro-feminist vigilante-superhero-girl-team movie that dares to be different. But it never comes together

Now that I think about it, Birds of Prey reminds me of a plate of mix-chaat, where every ingredient stands apart, even when mixed together. What works for the chaat — how the flavours fantabulously crunch together — doesn’t necessarily work for a movie ... especially this movie.

Take the disparate nature of the main cast — the eventual Birds of Prey — as an example. Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) is a Gotham Police detective with a world-saving, do-gooder attitude who works in a misogynistic environment. Helena Bertinelli (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a lone survivor of a mafia family gunned down by rivals, is out for revenge. Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a nightclub singer with a killer sonic scream, works for a mob boss who also happens to be a billionaire. Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), a young pickpocket, comes across a diamond which she gulps down (believe it or not, that’s the only thing you remember this character by). Everyone is more or less displaced and standalone.

Screenwriter Christina Hodson (Bumblebee) and director Cathy Yan fabricate a half-hearted excuse to bring this team together in a long-drawn climax at the end of a very short, yet seemingly long movie. The girls unite to beat down a gang of baddies assembled by Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor, superb), a vile sadist billionaire who slices off the faces of his victims, and has a fondness for collecting weird masks (ergo, his criminal name: Black Mask).

Roman wants the diamond Cassandra swallowed because it has the account numbers of the Bertinelli crime family, which would, of course make him richer and unstoppable in an already corrupt city such as Gotham. This forgettable main plot of the story may not even become apparent to the average viewer between the body-bashing, bone-breaking action, and the hard-to-chuckle-at humour.

The story doesn’t really come together. Scenes sporadically switch between Dinah, Helena, Renee and Cassandra for a few fleeting minutes before boomeranging back to Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), the main draw of the movie and the ‘fantabulous’ addendum of the title.

Robbie, also the producer, is the meat and potatoes of the movie. And even she is unevenly handled.

Opening with a small animated backstory, we see that Harley and Joker have split up. In, what I believe will be the ‘emancipation’ part of the title, she blows the chemical factory where she pledged herself to the Joker by following in his footsteps (for those who have read the original comics, Joker had accidentally fallen into a vat of chemicals that bleached his skin white). Soon, Harley’s life is on the line and she is tasked by Roman to bring in Cassandra.

Harley could have been gloriously grandiloquent. A totally out-of-it screwball wildcard who doesn’t play by the rules. Somehow, one feels an invisible leash reigning in both the character and the actress, whose performance is partially on the money (Robbie’s accent, though, is, pardon the constant use of the word, fantabulous). At times, she could almost pass off as a sane, normal person … unlike Deadpool, another screwball from another comic book cinematic universe.

Overall, the effort, apparent in the movie’s kitschy colour-splashed tone and production design, reeks of overburdened insecurity. Being another entry in DC’s already-disparate movie catalogue — recent additions include the dramatic and real world-ish Joker, the carefree comic book-ish Suicide Squad, another upcoming solemn Batman movie (with Robert Pattinson taking over from Ben Affleck), Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Justice League movies — one can’t really blame Birds of Prey for trying to be fantabulous, emancipated and different from the DC film universe.

In fact, I can almost see myself buying the “girls (and the movie) daring to be distinct and different” angle … if I hadn’t actually seen the movie.

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 23rd, 2020