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Her comedic chemistry with Robbie is like watching two roller derby teammates land hits in tandem.Īnd McGregor … to be candid, I struggle to find an apt pop culture comparison for his succulently deranged Black Mask, to the point where I’m convinced the portrayal is a stroke of whole-cloth genius. “Birds of Prey,” which barely winks at Batman, lets her dial up the grim-avenger-of-the-night bit to high-concept absurdity, without skimping on the heart of her tragic origin story.
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the World” and “10 Cloverfield Lane.” In so much as anyone feints at stealing the movie from Robbie, it’s Winstead. Winstead - an actress threatening to become wildly famous for about 15 years now - adds another superb genre role to a resume that already includes “Scott Pilgrim vs. The inimitable Perez shines as Montoya if it wasn’t the “Do the Right Thing” actress drunkenly tussling with Harley, you’d think “Blurgh, wish this was Rosie Perez.” (Yan fought for Perez to land the role, according to The Washington Post, and thank God.) Snaps for Yan, who gives all the birds their due wings, even if it’s Robbie’s show. RELATED: SXSW 2020: Witches! Cursed relics! SXSW announces Midnighters (And a surreal “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” dream sequence? Yes, we’re doing that, too.) There are plenty of slow-mo confetti clouds, technicolor smoke bombs, decaying carnival games and crunching bones - “Birds of Prey” deals every card in the Harley deck, coming to a mall near you. You also genuinely want this deadly (and dead-smart) henchwoman to learn to stand on her own two roller skates, and if she becomes a better person in the process, hey, all the better. Harley’s on-screen foils orbit her dip-dyed pigtails. Here, Robbie is allowed to build an entire world around her wisecracking, chaotic take on Ms.
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It’s the kind of genuinely hilarious Hollywood punch-em-up that seems like a no-brainer, since those make a gatrillion dollars, that studios always try to pump full of hot air and CGI until they become boring doom-zeppelins. Helmed by director Cathy Yan in her first big-budget super-outing, the movie is just too much fun. Why yes, all of our lethal ladies do end up joining forces to protect the kid and pound the mask off that twisted bastard’s face, thank you very much. There’s also downtrodden Gotham City police detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), mob-affiliated siren Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), connoisseur of pointy sticks/vigilante the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), a pickpocket who picked a pocket that happened to contain a diamond Black Mask wants. Harley’s not alone in crossing Black Mask, though. When word gets out that Harley and Joker are kaput, finito, donezo, all the many, many people whom she’s wronged come hunting for blood, including sadistic, flamboyant crime boss Black Mask (Ewan McGregor, and more on him later, because you could eat his performance with whipped cream and a spoon). Feeling sorry for herself, she throws back liquor, liberally drops her ex’s name to stay out of trouble and buys a pet hyena as a rebound present to herself. “Birds of Prey,” in theaters this weekend, finds Harley kicked to the curb by “Mistah J,” as she calls him. RELATED: Want to study up before ‘Birds of Prey’? Read these comic books
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(If Marvel fans can go see a talking raccoon at the multiplex, then DC fans deserve to see Black Canary - a Justice Leaguer who’s been around since the 1940s - while they munch popcorn.)
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Can you imagine! Nah, I meant “Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn),” a madcap crime caper, a live-action-but-cartoony catharsis, a movie where Margot Robbie hits a lot of misogynists with a giant mallet.įour years after bringing the Joker’s gun moll Harley Quinn to life as a daffy dame with roller derby flair in the critically panned “Suicide Squad,” Robbie (with a producer credit here) owns the spotlight with “Birds of Prey.” Keeping with the DC comic book from which the movie takes its name, she’s joined by a few crimefighters and crime-creators who were long due for a big-screen incarnation. Oh, no! Not “Joker.” You thought I meant “Joker”? Ha! Geez, no, sorry, I see how that was confusing. This is one of DC Comics’ most successful cinematic excursions ever. This is the tale of a criminal clown who, tired of being pushed to the margins of Gotham City, decides to fight back against those who underestimate them.
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