After the decline and then ultimate up-shoot of DC film’s in the last decade, one of the deciding films between that period was the 2016 film, Suicide Squad. Promising a fresh new start for the DC universe with a lot more color, energy and humor, along with a great looking style and some good actors like Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Viola Davis attached, people were very split on the film when it was release, with many agreeing that the film went too dull and predictable by the ending, many characters having very little definability, most of the great style and humor being pushed aside really quickly, and a overall dislike for Jared Leto as the Joker. What almost everyone seemed to agree on though was the portrayal of Harley Quinn done by Margot Robbie with a lot of people wishing to see her again, leading to her getting her own individual movie, though in a strange choice, the movie also decides to push in the Birds of Prey, a group of female superheros/villains created in the comics in 1989. Put together, it makes an average but all over the place movie. Right after she quite literally dumped the Joker in an explosive way, Harley Quinn (played again by Margot Robbie), is enjoying her new free life, but finds it hard now that she is one of the most wanted people in Gotham now that the Joker can’t protect her, facing threats from both criminals and cops, particularly Renee Montoya (played by Rosie Perez). Finding herself caught up in a big gem retrieval mission by mafia boss Black Mask (played by Ewan McGregor), Harley tracks down Cassandra Cain (played by Ella Jay Basco) and tries to keep her safe from the torturing hands of Black Mask. Along with Montoya, his lounge singer/driver named Dinah Lance (played by Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and an elusive crossbow killer looking for revenge named Huntress (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), all five of them have to team up together in order to escape Black Mask’s wrath. Coming out at a time where DC movies have finally found their footing, the movie feels like a realized Suicide Squad, in that even if it has its own share of faults, it keeps true to its wacky crazy bright nature and is far less boring and stale.

The story is arguably one that most people wouldn’t be incredibly familiar with because not only do they seem to alter themselves very differently from the already existing media, but aside from a few Harley Quinn comics, Birds of Prey is not a very strong recognizable comic series among most fans, so the franchise as well as the story and characters are up for interpretation. The film itself does have a much more inviting personality and tone around it; it’s full of passion and energy as well as bursting with color and insanity but isn’t too much overload that when the movie wants to do something a bit more serious, it still works fine enough. The issue for the movie comes more from the actual structure of the story and the screenplay attached to it. Being director, Cathy Yan’s first official movie, for a first time job it could have turned out a lot worst as she seems to direct the actors and most of the scenes relatively well, however the movie feels all over the place in how it’s telling a surprisingly complicated story. While the situations for how the characters end up together is a bit convenient, the ins-and-outs surrounding the plot not only take a bit of time to get to it, it also has to clash with being a follow-up to Suicide Squad (despite no other heroes or villains from that universe appearing in this movie), a stand-alone Harley Quinn movie, and a Birds of Prey intro film, having to try and squeeze all that together into a coherent narrative is definitely tricky and not always the easiest to follow.

The movie definitely should have been called Harley Quinn AND the Birds of Prey instead of the other way around as she takes up a whole chunk of the focus in the movie. Despite the movie not doing that much interesting stuff with Harley Quinn, it seems to be her movie and just an excuse for her to go around, act crazy, get into trouble, beat up some bad guys and all that stuff that everyone loves to see, but it does leave some of the characters feeling out of place. They don’t actually all meet up together until the climax and even up to that point, their distribution is a little messy. Black Canary, for example, is given a fair amount of screen time and investment to watch, yet she isn’t allowed to use her famous power until the last 10mins of the movie, its an odd trade-off. Huntress strangely has the opposite problem; she looks pretty cool and does awesome stuff, yet she’s only really seen in the climax, not giving the audience much time to get to know her. The other examples of Montoya and Cassandra Cain are seen more often and earn themselves a quick emotional connection because of it. Most of the actors are pretty good and are some of the main reasons for why most of this movie works; Margot Robbie is good as Quinn, all the birds of prey are pretty good actors, and seeing them work off each other is pretty cool. Ewan McGregor is having the time of his life as the villain, while its hard to say that he’s portraying the character of Black Mask correctly (being practically Joker levels of goofy), he’s clearly putting in a lot of effort and can be fairly intimidating at times.

The writing for the movie is one of the movie’s biggest weakness. Despite feeling like an obvious comedy and with how much it flaunts its over-the-top zany nature, it isn’t home to that many clever or even well-thought-out laughs, The performances are where more of the interesting part of the movie comes from, not the actual jokes, and the atmosphere and energy of the movie is likeable enough that despite the film’s poor humor, it doesn’t feel lifeless or boring, its just not telling any good material. What the movie lacks in quality writing, it more than makes up for its in action. Some of the action scenes in this movie are some of the highlights in the whole film. Its not just saved for the climax either, there are a few pieces sprinkled out in between and when they’re done, there’s some fun camera work, editing and choreography put into them. They featured some great looking stunts, some pretty cool locations (mainly the climax with a colorful looking set), most of the music surrounding each one is a pretty good choice, and it’s also surprisingly brutal. While the film does have its fair share of swearing and suggestive gross imagery, the violence in the fights feels especially harsh and painful, a lot of moves has that extra level of weight that isn’t felt in even most movies today, those parts are the most fun to get into.

Birds of Prey is very much like getting shot with a shotgun blast full of confetti; largely more flair than anything else, and maybe a bit over-dramatic, but strange, colorful and surprisingly harsh, that’s the movie in a nutshell. As a whole, it isn’t the most stand-out movie and doesn’t always have the best structure to it, but for someone who’s just looking for a silly movie with some nice visuals, good acting and a lot of good fight scenes, this is a good enough movie to watch. It’s more likely that this won’t appeal to fans of either Birds of Prey or even DC as a whole, but for a simple action movie, it does its job well enough. A perfectly stable middle of the road average job for a company that has been wobbled back and forth so many times. With the sparkle of a diamond, but with the same amount of force to pummel somebody with, it may offer just have that right amount of crazy for you to enjoy.