My Review of Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn) (2020)

Written by Christina Hodson
Directed by Cathy Yan

Harley (to Black Mask): "I'm the one they should be scared of. Not you, not Mr J, because I'm Harley Fucking Quinn."

Breaks up are never easy and when you're a certain former accomplice of Gotham's most depraved of criminals, well, you're never gonna go through things in a straightforward and logical manner. Then there's Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who really does take being dumped by the Joker (animated form, random body double, not Jared Leto) in quite a manner.

For Harley, it means reinventing herself. By this, she joins a roller derby, finds herself a nice little apartment above a takeaway, adopting an adorable hyena that she named Bruce, getting rowdy in a nightclub and breaking the knees of Roman Sionis's (Ewan McGregor) driver and to cap it off, blowing up Ace Chemicals and as a result putting a target on her head.

That simple act quickly resulted in Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) coming after her along with every single person that Harley has ever pissed off and soon enough, she managed to get captured by Roman and nearly killed by his henchman Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina) until she decided to help Sionis track down the world's worst pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) to retrieve a certain diamond that Cain stupidly ingested upon being arrested.

Between mad cap chase sequences, animated bits and a far too brief musical number, Harley finds herself both as a bounty hunter and grudging protector of Cassandra Cain as Black Mask turns the entire city on the pair as Montoya's career imploded and two other characters also find themselves drawn into this bout of mayhem to boot.

The characters in question are of course, nightclub singer Dinah Lance/Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and former mafia princess/vigilante, Helena Bertinelli/Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Aside from Robbie, these are two characters that worked the best throughout the movie and two characters that regardless of the outcome of this movie, I desperately want to see a lot more of. They really are that great to watch.

Dinah's journey from disenfranchised singer to taking on her mother's mantle was given a decent amount of screen time and character wise, there wasn't a single character that Dinah didn't bounce off with. She's easily the best character of the movie and it would be an injustice if the DCEU don't explore the character much further. As for the Canary Cry, it's used only once and it's put to fantastic use.

The same can also be said about Huntress. She's not given as much as screen time but the moments she had were fantastic to watch as for a woman with an excellent aim, the movie generated a brilliant social awkwardness with as well. Again, it would be a massive shame if we didn't get to see Huntress in another movie.

As for Cassandra Cain and Renee Montoya - neither character were that bad but I didn't really take to either as well. Cassandra might have been a departure too far from her comic counterpart and Renee's whole storyline had some of the weakest storytelling in the whole movie. I know the movie had a fun commentary on Renee being such a movie detective cliche but it didn't really help the character at times.

As for our villains - while both of them were quickly disposed of towards the final act of the movie, both essentially worked. Zsasz was as creepy and as sadistic as he has been in other mediums and did feel threatening as did Roman Sionis at times too, given that he wanted to make a name known for himself in Gotham with the Joker's absence. Not to mention both men did have all five female characters drawn to one another for variety of reasons that did make sense. Both Zsasz and Black Mask are definitely two of the more successful baddies used in the DCEU.

In terms of the action - this movie has some interesting sequences. The obvious ones included the jail raid scene and of course, the fight in the funhouse. The latter must have been a logistical nightmare for crew but it plays off rather well. Having a certain director to help beef up these scenes definitely paid off in that regard.

Also in terms of LGBT content because this has been a source of contention with certain reviewers, I'll admit that as a gay man who watched this movie, I generally wasn't fussed. Harley's bisexuality is hinted at albeit in a rather literal cartoonish way while Montoya had a fairly unsympathetic ex-girlfriend, Ellen Yee (Ali Wong) who appeared in a few scenes. Roman's homosexuality is never stated onscreen but his campness is certainly played up a bit. It's baby steps and hopefully a future DCEU movie will really go there but for now, it's a good start.

In terms of the script, it's very funny in parts and there's a good commentary on reinventing yourself but the story itself is definitely as straightforward as you can get though. On a disappointing note, the lack of at least one sympathetic male character is a bit of a downer even if the movie didn't come across as anti-men but another positive would be that it's girl power messaging never feels heavy handed or patronising either. Oh and for those who were worried that Harley formed a certain group, she didn't but Renee might have though as this film ends with the title group established and Harley and Cassandra off on their own adventures.

- The opening sequence was actually a cartoon as Harley spent a lot of this movie breaking the fourth wall in the only way she could do.
- There's a few Easter Eggs scattered throughout the movie but the most interesting one is the scene that actually inspired Paul Dini's creation of the character.
- I loved the end title sequence and the round up of people who have contributed to certain comics that influenced this movie.
- Christina Hodson's next DCEU project is going to be The Flash and it'll be interesting to see how she tackles a certain speedster after the mayhem of this one.
- There's no post/mid credit sequence but we did have Harley about to tell us a secret about Batman before things cut off.
- Standout music, there's loads but my top three would be Adona's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Black Canary's It's A Man's Man's Man's World and Charlotte Lawrence's Joke's On You. Chronology, I'm gonna say it's probably 2020 here.

Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn) has got to be the wildest DCEU movie to date. While I can think of at least three movies better than it, there are also three movies that are not as good as it either. It's essentially what Suicide Squad should've been although it's unlikely to do as financially as said movie. It's a shame, because's it's a genuinely fun and bonkers movie that utilized it's main cast rather well and like I said, there's certain characters I really want to see more of in future movies. It's not a movie for everyone, but I definitely left the cinema happy with what I had seen.

Rating: 8 out of 10

My Review of DC TV's Crossover: "Crisis On Infinite Earths: Hours 1-3" (Supergirl/Batwoman/TheFlash)

It's time for the biggest crossover event that the Arrow universe could come up with and while in years past, I would've reviewed the whole thing together, this time around, it's an event that has five episodes, spanning two months, so here's a review of the first three hours of Crisis On Infinite Earths.

Written by Robert Rovner & Marc Guggenheim & Derek Simon & Jay Faerber & Don Whitehead & Holly Henderson & Lauren Certo & Sterling Gates & Eric Wallace
Directed by Jesse Warn & Laura Belsey & David McWhirter

Anti-Monitor: "It is time to end the age of heroes and everything you hold close."

In last year's crossover event, Elseworlds, we knew this moment was coming and it's certainly been prepared for with the latest seasons of two of the shows in question. As we kick things off in the Supergirl side of things, worlds are being destroyed and Kara herself can do nothing to save her mother, Alura (Erica Durance) as Argo City is one of the first worlds to perish but the use of Lyla/Harbinger (Audrey Marie Anderson) does however mean that most of our players are not perishing as Kara is soon reunited with Superman, Lois Lane, Green Arrow, Mia Smoak, Sara Lance, Batwoman, The Flash and The Atom and in this first part, there's a mixture of recon with some of the group, getting Jonathan Kent back from Earth 16 in 20148 where Sara briefly reunited with an older Oliver while in the present day, our Oliver ended up a casualty.

Now this early in the game seemed a little too quick to have Oliver killed off and needless to say once we move into the Batwoman segment of things, this was something that wasn't going to stick. I did like Sara voicing concerns about bringing Oliver back from the dead even Mia wasn't so keen on listening to then. Then again, the second part did give us an interesting team up of Sara, Mia, Barry and Constantine as they managed to bring Oliver back from the dead but it took striking a deal with a certain someone in The Flash side of things and Diggle reaching out to his "brother" in order to get Oliver back on side. Of course the biggest highlight in the second part of this installment was Iris, Lois and Clark trying to stop Lex Luthor's (Jon Cryer) one man mission to kill as many versions of Superman as he could by setting the Earth 96 version of the character (Brandon Routh) onto our Clark before Iris and Lois managed to get one over on Lex. Having Routh get to play a role he played over a decade ago was great for the second and third parts of this crossover event. It's like he never left the role to begin with.

However while I was happy to see another Superman in the mix, the only Batman we got was in Earth 99 and had become a homicidal maniac that died a rather anticlimactic death to boot. On the plus side, he was played by Kevin Conroy who made the most of his limited screentime and aside from Ruby Rose, at least Cadmus Johnson was the only other member of Batwoman to appear in this episode, albeit as a more nihilistic and somewhat off putting version of Luke Fox. I did like the scenes that Kate had in these episodes with both Bruce and Kara and the fact that the she was getting her head around the bigger universal threats beyond Gotham.

An ongoing theme in the episodes was the fact that they are seven Paragons out there that are able to stop the Anti-Monitor (LaMonica Garrett) and throughout the episodes we learned that Supergirl represented hope, Batwoman courage, Sara destiny, Earth 96 Superman truth, Martian Manhunter honor, The Flash love while newly added into the mix, pre second Atom Ryan Choi (Osiric Chau) of course would represent humanity. Of course as a new father/husband, Ryan was somewhat reluctant to embrace his destiny until Iris was able to reach out to him and Ryan jumped onto the Waverider along with everyone else as the Anti-Monitor and Pariah (Tom Cavanagh) brought things to a rather interesting standstill.

By the end of this episode, it seemed that Oliver was about to become the new Spectre after the previous one, Jim Corrigan (Stephen Lobo) while Earth 90 Flash (JohnWesley Shipp) made a noble sacrifice to help save this Earth, along the arrival of Black Lightning in the third hour also helped matters to boot. It might have taken three seasons but it seems that Jefferson is now a part of this universe, even if he has lost his wife and daughters in the mix. I do get the feeling though that in the next two hours, both Jefferson and Kara are going to find their Earths merged in with Earth 1, assuming that all the deaths on the Waverider are of course reversed and can we talk about Lex Luthor replacing Earth 96 Superman so he could be a Paragon? Damn, that fella will do anything for attention.

- Okay cameos and there were a lot of them in these three hours, so let's break them down.
- Earth 9: Titans with both Curran Walters and Alan Ritchson appearing as Robin II and Hawk, then Earth 66 had Burt Ward as himself while Earth 89 had Robert Wuhl as a Gotham City citizen.
- Earth X saw a brief appearance of The Ray while Earth 75 showed us Lois grieving over a dead Superman.
- Earth 76 only gave us Mick but also a voice cameo from Wentworth Miller as the Waverider's Leo Snart.
- Earth 167 gave us Tom Welling as a retired/non powered Clark Kent and Erica Durance's Lois Lane as they both have daughters, live on the farm and Lex was not impressed with Clark being normal now.
- Earth 203 briefly gave Huntress (Ashley Scott) with a voice cameo from Dina Meyer's Oracle while Earth 666 also gave us Lucifer (Tom Ellis), who flirted with Constantine and Earth 18 also gave us a more sleazier version of Jonah Hex (Johnathon Schaech). We also got an appearance from Wil Wheaton on Earth 38 and Griffin Newman on Earth 1. I think that covers everything.
- Basically shows/movies such as Batman (1989), Smallville, Birds Of Prey, Lucifer, Superman Returns and Titans are now sort of a part of this universe.

Crisis On Infinite Earths has gotten off to a flying start and while this is the most ambitious and fan service driven event yet, there's definitely a sense of things being set up for the future (Mia's spin-off for a start) and the end of an era for other things. I loved so many moments, it's impossible to highlight them all and I certainly gasped at certain parts too. It's going to be a long wait for the remaining two parts of this event but I don't doubt it will be worth it though.

Rating: 9 out of 10