Review: Birds of Prey (Blu-ray)

It’s open season on Harley Quinn when her explosive breakup with the Joker puts a big fat target on her back. Unprotected and on the run, Quinn faces the wrath of narcissistic crime boss Black Mask, his right-hand man, Victor Zsasz, and every other thug in the city. But things soon even out for Harley when she becomes unexpected allies with three deadly women — Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya.

Plot: After splitting with the Joker, Harley Quinn joins superheroes Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord.

Director: Cathy Yan

Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Runtime: 109 min

Rotten Tomatoes Consensus: With a fresh perspective, some new friends, and loads of fast-paced action, Birds of Prey captures the colorfully anarchic spirit of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn.

Online Ratings:

  1. Rotten Tomatoes 78% (Audience 78%)
  2. IMDB 6.2
  3. Metacritic 60
  4. Cinemascore B+

“Morgot Robbie as Harley Quinn is the perfect storm.”

Review:

After the whole Enchantress madness the Joker breaks up with Harley Quinn, throwing her out on the Gotham City streets. She is ultimately taken in by an owner of a Taiwanese restaurant, Doc. How does she recover? By cutting her hair, adopting a hyena and joining roller derby.

One night Harley gets drunk at a nightclub and cripples Roman Sionis’ driver after he insults her. At the same time, she meets burlesque singer Dinah Lance who later rescues her from an attempted abduction. Sionis is so impressed by Dinah’s skills he appoints her as his new driver. The next night, Harley blows up the Ace Chemicals plant as a way to publicly announce her and Joker’s breakup. During the craziness GCPD Detective Renee Montoya is investigating a series of mob killings carried out by a crossbow-wielding vigilante. Finding Harley’s necklace at the scene of the Ace Chemicals explosion, Montoya notes that Harley is in danger without the Joker’s protection. She approaches Dinah about being an informant on Sionis for them, but Dinah rejects the offer.

From here Sionis sends Dinah and his right-hand-man Victor Zsasz to retrieve a diamond embedded with the account numbers to the Bertinelli crime family fortune, who were massacred years ago. Cassandra “Cass” Cain steals the diamond from Zsasz and swallows it after she is arrested. Harley, fleeing from Montoya and several other people she had wronged, is captured by Sionis’s men.

Just before Sionis is about to kill Harley, she offers to recover the diamond for him. Breaking into the GCPD with a variety of firework-inspired non-lethal grenade launcher rounds, Harley frees Cassandra and the pair escape.

What happens next? What will they do with the diamond? You’ll have to check out the film to find out.

In conclusion —

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is out of control, crazy, violent and brutal fun. Where else can you have a scene where a woman with a bat could single-handily take on five guys with machine guns while hyped up on drugs in a police station? Nowhere — which is why everything works inside this world.

Let me put my critical hat on for a second, yes, the plot is a little all over the place, but that kind of mess of a movie that embraces the insanity is why it works. Could you have this kind of flow in Aquaman or Joker? Absolutely not, but here… it somehow finds a way to make sense. Good news is the jumbled plot is filled with entertaining fight scenes, humor and the biggest highlight, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn — she hits all of her scenes big and small. (While she obviously steals the show, the entire casting is spot on from top to bottom.)

Call me crazy talking about future movies, but I feel like all the pieces are in place and we are set up for a fantastic sequel. Can we bring back Jared Leto as the Joker please?

Lastly, the special features. On this release you get Birds of a Feather, Grime and Crime, Wild Nerds, Romanesque, Sanity is Sooo Last Season and A Love Skate Relationship. In total you are looking at about 40 minutes of extra footage! While my favorite was learning more about the production design in Grime and Crime, the best is the first on the menu entitled Birds Eye View. Here you get to watch the movie again, but with break downs of certain scenes the director and actors. They did a great job with the layout of this one — instead of just the standard commentary, you get a visual expierence.

Taking everything I’ve said into account, Birds of Prey gets my recommendation for an automatic day one purchase. Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn is the perfect storm. Like I mentioned above, this movie knows what it wants and who it is — and it delivers. Do yourself a favor, grab a copy at your local retailer on 4K & Blu-ray today.

Are you a fan of Birds of Prey? Will you be picking it up to own? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Cheers,

Matt.

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