Read Mon's review of Birds of Prey at Bam Smack Pow.
Ron: Welcome to our second Flashback Favourites episode! I’m Ron.
Mon: And I’m Mon. Usually when you think of a Flashback Favourite, you’re thinking about going way back. Not this time. In this Stereo Geeks episode, we’re looking at a film that’s not even a year old.
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn may be a mouthful, but it’s worth every minute of that tongue-twister title.
Ron: Before continuing, please note that this episode includes spoilers for Birds of Prey. If you haven’t watched the film yet, we have to ask? Why are you waiting?
Content warning: some of the content in the film can be triggering, please proceed with caution.
Mon: Written by Christina Hodson and directed by Cathy Yan, Birds of Prey is a vehicle for Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn.
At the start of the film, she and the Joker have broken up, and now Harley’s got a target on her back.
Said target leads her to work for and against the local crime boss—Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask. Played by Ewan McGregor and ably supported by Chris Messina’s Victor Zsasz, these villains are going to soon be up against the Birds of Prey.
Ron: The film introduces us to the future team - Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Helena Bertinelli aka The Huntress and Jurnee Smollett as Dinah Lance aka Black Canary. They’re all embroiled in a hunt for Cassandra Cain (played by Ella Jay Basco).
We were in two minds about going to see this film. People loved Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, but her character was problematic, to say the least. We were worried that this film would continue in the same vein.
And then came the title—we weren’t sure if it was trying to be precocious or precious. But we held out hope because it was written and directed by two women, and Robbie was also one of the producers.
Mon: When I was asked to review Birds of Prey, I took it as a sign that this film was meant to be something special. And it was!
The film kicks off with giving us a little bit of an intro into Harley’s origin story. There's an animated opening sequence that leads into her being dumped by Joker, though that’s not how she tells the story.
And then she's on her own and it's the first time since her supervillain career started that she's on her own. So how does she work in this new circumstance? Who does she turn to? She doesn't have anybody. Everybody she knows works with the Joker.
Ron: Even the few friends that we see her having outside of her supervillain life, they keep talking about how she's going to go back to the Joker. Because that's what she done a million times. And that hurts her feelings.
Mon: Yeah, I like that the film really tries to subvert everything that we know about Harley or how she's been written all this while, which is exactly what makes it different. And you know from the start that yes this is going to be different because they're treating Harley as a person. Not as Joker squeeze.
And then we meet the other character. How do they play a role in Harley's life? And how do they get involved in the search for Cassandra Cain?
Cassandra lives in the same building as Black Canary. Canary understands some of the problems that Cassandra is going through. She has foster family that obviously have issues; Canary lost her mom when she was very young, so she's had to go through that situation as well.
The person who took her in was Roman Sionis and Canary’s been singing and working with him all this while. Canary gets a promotion with Black Mask when Harley accidentally breaks Black Mask’s driver’s legs, and that's how she becomes a bigger part of Harley’s life.
And aside from that, there is Renee Montoya. She’s a detective. She is desperately trying to take down Roman Sionis, but she can't get any traction from her department.
When Renee comes across the scene of a whole bunch of people who are dead, she can envision who this killer is. But she's not being taken seriously. And you find out why. It's because her former partner took the credit for her work and is now her boss. So, she's been undermined at work all the time, even by this rookie cop who's her partner. It's ridiculous, but it's so real.
And the final piece of the puzzle is Helena Bertinelli. Now, we don't actually see this character till well into the film. And there's a reason why; she's supposed to be the mysterious crossbow killer. So, who she is and how she plays into the final storyline comes to the fore much later in the film.
So, these are the main character and I think they’re the main reason we love this film so much.
What do you like about them?
Ron: Well, from the opening sequence we're just hooked because, even though you and I aren't huge fans of Harley especially because of the Suicide Squad version, the writers give us this quick-fire origin story that made Harley believable and funny.
And her origins were about beating every obstacle to become successful and then chucking it all up for a misguided romance.
And I also love the fact that they, kind of, snuck in Harley's bisexuality, without making a big deal out of it. So that means there's a possibility that we might see her with Poison Ivy, which I understand that Yan is very interested in exploring in Birds of Prey 2.
But I also love the fact that Harley is just a hot mess. Like the whole thing with her breaking the Black Mask’s driver’s legs, it's because she's super drunk and she just can’t take any crap anymore.
The entire scene where she's at the Black Mask’s club just drinking away and dancing and having the time of her life, all the while knowing that she can only do this because everybody still thinks that she's with the Joker. It's quite an unusual way of exploring the character’s mental state.
And then when she opens up to the Black Canary, it's such a sweet bonding moment even though you can see from Black Canary’s face that, a) she doesn't care, and b) she's also worried about what's going to happen to Harley. I just love that. You don't get to see stuff like that.
Mon: And it's a subversion of what Harley Quinn was like in Suicide Squad, where she is very much on display rather than being a character who's having fun. That's exactly what she does at Black Mask’s club. As long as she has the protection of being Joker's partner, she can have as much fun as she wants, because she's invincible.
But the bubble pops when she confesses to Canary the truth and it's such a believable scene where these two women are bonding at a club; having a good time. And some creepy guy overhears what she's talking about.
That puts Harley in a rather difficult and uncomfortable circumstance, which Canary gets her out of. Despite that fact the two of them, throughout the rest of the movie, continue to have snarky banter. But that scene, where Harley is in danger: we're so used to seeing roguish male characters come to her rescue—the knight in shining armor—but instead we have Canary and she's got this gold trim going on and she's beating people up. I love it. I just love subversion.
Ron: And I also love the fact that Canary doesn't want to get involved and this is unfortunately very true to life. You see something bad happening and sometimes you just don't want to be a part of it because you don't know what's going to happen to you.
Canary is very capable of taking care of herself, so she’s able to get involved. But you see that hesitation in her, even though she knows that if she were in Harley's position, she'd want Harley to come and save her. And she does finally act on it and she saves Harley.
Mon: But, in essence, I think there's a lot of underlying fear inside Canary. Because if she gets involved, she’s working for Roman Sionis, how does that affect her? So there's a lot going on.
Ron: Especially since, soon after, she gets the driving gig, which she really doesn't want. Because as long as she's a singer, she's still slightly apart from the Black Mask gang. But the moment she becomes involved as something as important as a driver, who can sometimes be a getaway driver, then she's embroiled in this. She can't get out.
Mon: Yeah. And you can see how beholden Canary is to Sionis, even though she doesn't want to be. But there is this amazing scene after she's got the new driving gig and Sionis is showing her around his office. Now she's never obviously been there, because she was just a singer, so, she's never had to be in his office. He's showing her all stuff, all the conquests, all his travel mementos that he's got and she is so not interested. But she's putting on this act and it is amazing, amazing acting by both of the actors over there.
Ron: I love how understated Jurnee Smollett is. She just embodies a real person in a really uncomfortable situation. And Ewan McGregor is having the time of his life in this scene! You know, I'm thinking about one of his best roles which kind of went under the radar for him for some reason.
That was in The impossible. He was really good in that. But that was a movie which was very dark, very suspenseful. It is based on a true story. Real people were very badly hurt. And his character has to embody that. This movie? It is completely the opposite. He is mean and horrid and flamboyant. He is enjoying every second of being on screen. And you can see that Ronan is so self-involved. He doesn't even realize that Black Canary isn't paying attention. It's not about her appreciating what he's got. It's about him showing off. I love it!
Mon; Honestly, the characters are what makes this entire movie come alive. You can see these little nuances that actors have put into creating these characters and making them these full-fledged people that we can understand. I mean, they're in Gotham, which doesn't exist. They're faced with these weird, crazy situations that probably aren’t realistic. But they themselves are very real.
Ron: It’s not what you expect in what is technically a superhero film. Even though this is basically a supervillain film. I know Joker tried to do that. But it was so in-your-face that it didn't feel real. Here, they go in the opposite direction. They are loud and colourful and they are out there. But you believe it.
Mon: That’s because these characters are relatable. The problem with a lot of superhero and genre films is that sometimes they are so interested in the spectacle, that they forget to make the characters relatable or real.
Ron: The spectacle in Birds of Prey is secondary to the characters. Now I do want to mention the fact that Black Canary is essentially race-swapped in this film. In the comic books and in most of the iterations of the character, she's always been a white woman. Here, she's played by Jurnee Smollett, who is a black woman. And I love it because it doesn't matter. Why don't they keep doing this?
Mon: I would have loved it even more if Huntress had been played by a Latina woman because in the comics, Bertinelli is a Latina woman in some iterations. So, people were a little bit upset about that. I understand. That being said, Many Elizabeth Winstead is so fun in this film. She has a really curtailed role but she is incredible. She's this ball of rage that doesn’t know how to fit into society because she hasn't been part of society for so long. She has a mission. She has to execute this mission and she goes about doing it the only way she knows how. But when she has to deal with people? She just doesn't know!
Mon: And then there's Renee Montoya, who is technically the everyman. In a movie about supervillains, Renee Montoya should be the obvious bad guy. But you can’t help but root for her. A – she is in a position that a lot of women find themselves. They do the work, they don’t get to take the credit.
She also has an ex who is doing quite well for herself. But she's kind of mean?
Mon: And they constantly have to work together and also Renee keeps using her ex's name to get stuff done, which her ex does not like.
Ron: Her ex, played by Ali Wong, the two of them have this really great antagonistic chemistry, so, I really love their scenes together. But she's the Assistant District Attorney, who is obviously somebody that a detective will turn to for the most part. They've got this really difficult relationship so, everything that would have worked before? Now, not so much.
Mon: What I liked about Renee’s characterization is that she’s so dogged. She doesn't become bitter because of all the promotions that she's lost or that her status at work isn't that great. Instead, she's rather dogged. You can see her obsessed with this one case, because she knows that this is the linchpin that can get her all the glory that she needs, and she deserves. But in the end, even that is snatched away. Because that's just how life is unfortunately, sometimes.
It's really the believability of Renee Montoya and how are understated Rosie Perez’s performance is. She was my favorite character in the film. Despite not having those kinds of action scenes. You can really see yourself in her. She's just a good person trying to be a good guy in this really rotten world. And she's not getting anywhere. Until she finds a team who understand her.
Ron: Also, let's not forget the fact that we get these little snippets of how good she is at her job. The scene which we mentioned earlier, where she's looking at Huntress’ work, she can immediately imagine where the killer was standing. Who the actual target was. Who the collateral damage was.
Mon: What their motivations were.
Ron: And she's conveying that as she's looking at it. Her partner doesn’t care. He’s decided that oh, this must be a mob hit. No, it's not a mob hit. There is a very particular reason why this person was killed. Also, that scene is interrupted by Harley blowing up the ACE chemicals factory, because she wants to get back at the Joker. And the moment Renee gets there, and she sees what's happening, she's like, Harley is in trouble now, she's put a target on her back. Because she knows how Gotham works. Do her partners know that? Does her boss know that? We know that Renee's really good at her work. We know that she's got the experience, but nobody else in the film realizes that until she meets the Birds of Prey.
Ron: So, the characters are fun because there’s a ton of humour in this film. And it's not forced humour. I feel like that was one of the problems with Suicide Squad. There were these moments of humour, which I just felt like somebody had shoehorned into the film. It wasn't natural here. Here, it comes off naturally. One of the people in the film that I didn't expect to be as humorous as she was, was Black Canary. The moment that it was announced the Black Canary was going to be in this film, I went back and read Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey. This film was partially based on that. But it's quite dark. It doesn’t really have the kind of humour that you get in this film. Which I feel like harks back to the Birds of Prey: Rebirth comics, which is much lighter, more humorous and Black Canary in that is just the best. She is so adorable. I just loved her in that and that made me want to see Black Canary in Birds of Prey so much more. The balance that we get in this film is really quite enjoyable. She's harsh, she’s humorous, she's witty, but she's also sarcastic. And she understands what her role is in the world around her. So, I quite enjoyed that.
Mon: She's not unsympathetic. That's what I liked about this character. And in a way that how you feel about most of the characters. They don't come across as unsympathetic. You really want to root for them. And even Harley. We've already mentioned that we weren't all that enthused with this character, or how much she’s pervaded all of pop culture. But this film really made you want to love this character. And protect her. Because she gets into scrape after scrape, because she really doesn't know what she's going to do with herself. She's a little bit guileless. And the biggest problem is, in Gotham, people see her as an easy target. They’re wrong. They find out soon enough.
It's hilarious, the way when it becomes obvious that Harley is no longer attached to the Joker. How these people come out of the woodwork because of all the things that she's done to them. We even have Renee going after Harley because if she doesn't get Black Mask, getting Harley is another coup for her. But she doesn't succeed either.
Ron: I love those screen cards, which explain to us exactly what Harley did to these people, and some of them are so hilarious. Like, really dude, move on, it's fine! And then when she sees Huntress? She's like, ‘huh, what's this?’ And there's just like question marks? It’s so funny. It’s these simple, silly little gags that make this film so much fun to watch. Like, we watched it with a huge smile on our face the entire runtime.
Ron: And you know what, because the characters are so enjoyable, that's what powers the plot. You care so much about them because everything that happens, matters. The story is just so well structured You have the protagonist finding her team. They all start off in a bad place. By the middle they’ve found their footing. But then the villain gets the upper hand. And the final act is about this team working together to win. It's a very classic storyline. But the reason why it's elevated is because the characters are well written and the direction for this film was excellent.
Mon: A lot of people might find it jarring that Harley is basically narrating this film. But what makes it work is that Harley is an unreliable narrator. And we find that out from the very beginning. She's talking about how she dumped the Joker or that they have an amicable relationship despite the break-up. All of that is untrue and so you have to ask yourself are we seeing the truth when we are seeing it from Harley's eyes?
When Harley really gets involved in the actual plot of the film. We see her going to the police station, searching for Cassandra Cain, because Cassandra has the MacGuffin of the film. We see Harley shooting with glitter and paint. Now when I first watched it, I was sure that, oh this means that Harley has turned over a new leaf. She's not going around killing people. She's actually knocking them down with glitter guns. But are they glitter guns?
Ron: When I watched the film, I was like, hundred percent, this is Harley's imagination. That's how she sees the world now. Maybe the ACE chemicals, they got to her brain somewhat. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason why she sees things differently. But there was no way, in hell, that those were glitter guns.
Mon: So, there's a lot of dead bodies that we didn’t see. And that is such a cool thing to do with the direction! It makes it friendly. It makes it watchable without making it gory. But at the same time, it makes you question what's happening on screen and it makes you question Harley's mentality.
Margot Robbie has a lot of action scenes in this film and she's brilliant. She and her stunt double—I know she does a lot of stunts herself, but you can tell in a few scenes, that definitely a stunt double was used. They are so good, so impactful. But even those action scenes, they're not just about fighting. They're about relying on who this character and advancing her journey, as well.
One thing I had read about the action scenes for the film was that the choreographer specifically tailored the stunts for the characters in them. So, it's not like these small, tiny, slim women going around judo-kicking everybody. It's about them using their powers as well as using their surroundings to get the bad guy.
Ron: That becomes most obvious in the evidence locker that Harley finds herself in when she's trying to protect Cassandra Cain. She's using the cages. She's using whatever weapons that she can find. She uses a cell phone at one point. And one of the scenes that I absolutely loved was when she's hiding behind this massive crate of cocaine, which gets shot up. So, there's cocaine everywhere. She inhales some. And at this point she's a bit tired, she's been fighting for a while. She gets this jolt because of all the cocaine, and it helps her fight even harder. And I was like, you know what, it really works!
Mon: Yeah, I completely agree with you. It's these moments in the writing and the direction that really keep you immersed in the film. It never takes you out of it because it feels like yeah, that makes sense.
Ron: Every single thing that happens in this film, whether it's in the background, the foreground, around the characters, around the bad guys, everything has some kind of relation to the plot. I love that about it that's really tight writing.
Ron: So, we've talked a lot about the good guys, or rather the good bad guys, because there are bad bad guys. But the villains here, they really are engaging in themselves. What did you love about them?
Mon: First of all, Ewan McGregor as Black Mask, I never saw that coming.
Ron: I've read Black Mask in the comics. He tends to appear in a lot of the Jason Todd/ Red Hood storylines. He's so boring. I don't care about this guy.
Mon: He's a generic crime lord. He's nothing exciting or different. But here in Birds of Prey, Roman is more than that. And what works with Roman, he isn't just an evil bad guy. He's an insecure, petulant, man-child.
Ron: Absolutely. And what better villain in a superhero film for 2020? Because for the last four years, we have seen an insecure, petulant, rich, man-child, run a country, and the world, to the ground.
Mon: Ewan McGregor is such an unlikely casting for this character. First of all, we think of him as Obi Wan Kenobi. He's this really, nice Scottish gentlemen, we really like this guy. How can he be playing Black Mask? It's obvious that he is loving every moment of playing Black Mask. And more than Black Mask, he is loving every moment of playing Roman.
Roman is so flamboyant, so larger than life, that you can make out that everything that he's doing is to stave off that insecurity that he has. He didn't live up to his father's expectations. So, everything he does is to get back in his good books. Roman’s plan to do that is by being evil, by making connections with other mob bosses. And when they don't go his way, he sets Victor Zsasz on those people and their families.
Ron: Speaking of Zsasz, it took me a little while to realise Chris Messina was playing Victor Zsasz because he looked quite different from what we've seen especially in the video games that we've played for Batman. I really like Zsasz. He is so creepy. The version that we get in this film is quite different. But I feel like he's kind of a good mix between the video game and comic version of Zsasz and the version that we get in Gotham, who was a little quirky, a little bit funny, really enjoyable to watch. Chris Messina is a bit darker and kind of smarmy. But also injects a little bit of unintentional humor into Zsasz.
Mon: There was a lot of talk about Roman Sionis and Zsasz, and what their relationship would be. People wondered if there was something a little bit more than just a professional partnership. I feel like the creators were smart enough to not go deep into how their relationship works. But you can really tell that there's a kind of closeness between the two. For example, it's obvious that Sionis sees Zsasz as his right-hand man. But Zsasz isn't too sure about his place next to Sionis.
Well, he's Roman Sionis. He's like a fairweather friend. So, with Zsasz, he's always trying to grab intention. Anytime he sees that Roman is interacting with somebody else, or somebody else seems to be getting higher in Roman’s affections, Zsasz tries to bring the attention back to himself.
So, we talked earlier about when Canary is in Roman’s headquarters and in his office and she's being shown around all the stuff that he's got. So Zsasz is in the background. And he's very uncomfortable with how much attention is being given to Canary. So, you can just see in his mind he's thinking oh no, becoming his top favorite, I have to bring it back to me. And then immediately he drops a bomb on Roman. Attention is back on him.
And, even later, when they capture Harley, he's like all in your face about it. He's just putting up a performance for Roman. So, you can tell that this isn't an equal partnership. Zsasz is trying very hard to remain indispensable. So, he trying every possible way to be relevant.
Ron: Yeah, kind of like the fact that eventually we see that it's not a romantic relationship between Zsasz and Roman. There's a power dynamic that would make it a bit uncomfortable. Queer-coded characters tend to become villains so often, we really didn't need to go in that direction for this film. It's up to everybody's imagination and that is the best way to go about it. Because it would be alright if we already had a huge bunch of queer characters who were on the good side. But we don’t have that and it's going to take ages for genre films to catch up that regard. So not making this obvious, worked.
But you can see that whatever Zsasz does feel, whether it's romantic, whether it's some kind affiliation, he really needs to be all up in Roman’s business. And the way he keeps that physical closeness constantly, and the moment Roman steps away from him, it makes him so uncomfortable. Those are the little things that I really liked.
Now, this is something that we were talking about. I have been noticing that in film and television recently, sometimes you can see that characters who aren't involved directly within the dialogue or the action in a particular scene, they blank and they’re just waiting for their turn to speak. You don't get that in this film. Whoever is around the main cast, they still have something to do. So, in that scene where Roman is showing Canary around his office, yes, they're both engaged but even those Zsasz doesn't really have anything to say or do, his expressions tell you so much about the character. And that's throughout this film, which is really good.
Mon: So, let's talk about that scene. Man, that was an uncomfortable scene in Roman’s club. Hoo boy!
Ron: Okay, so let's describe it. Now, what we’ve seen is a bunch of people just enjoying themselves, and Roman seems to enjoy fostering that kind environment, he wants people to enjoy themselves.
But we find out just how difficult Roman can make things when he's not happy. He gets some bad news and instead of acting like a normal person and letting the party continue while he seethes inside and tries to plan his next steps, he decides to take it out on a patron.
We meet Erika, just for this one scene. She's played by Bojana Novakovic—apologies if we didn't pronounce her name properly. She's just a party-goer; she's enjoying herself, she's with her friends. They're laughing. Roman takes that as an affront. He thinks they're laughing at him.
Mon: And let’s just point out here that Erika and her friends are on the other side of the room. They couldn't possibly have heard what happened to Roman, or why he's upset. They wouldn't have been laughing at him in any respect. But this is his insecurity coming to the fore.
Ron: He tries to embarrass her and initially she takes it as a joke. So, she doesn't really act on it but then he’s so aggressive about it that she has no choice. The whole scene becomes so uncomfortable for everybody—for Erika, for her friends, for Black Canary who's literally standing quietly crying in a corner. And for every single viewer in the hall, you're holding a breath and just feeling sick inside.
Mon: When we very first watched this scene, I felt Ewan McGregor wasn't quite connected with what his character was doing. By the time we watched it a second time, maybe because I knew it was coming, I was more appreciative of how hard he was trying. He was definitely uncomfortable as well. Just as uncomfortable as the rest of us, but the entire scene is made for that. It's supposed to make you recoil in horror.
Apparently, director Cathy Yan had to fight to keep this scene in because the studio couldn’t why it needed to be there. One could argue that we didn't need to know how evil Roman can be. But, you know that if it was any other kind of director they would have made it very sleazy, very salacious. But with Cathy Yan, you can tell that this scene is supposed to highlight the discomfort of the characters and not make it gratuitous.
Ron: I'm not surprised that the studio fought back against it, because I don't think they would have understood what it means for the people who are watching it. When we were in the hall and this scene happened, there was a pin drop silence.
Till then, we were all enjoying ourselves, we were laughing. The discomfort of every single viewer was palpable. And none of us could breathe till this scene was finished.
Mon: One thing I noticed was that when this scene begins, Ewan McGregor is very obviously made-up a little bit. You can see he's got a little bit of eyeliner going on. He looks absolutely gorgeous and then he does this, and you just forget about how good he looks.
You know that there is a constant argument that people are more likely to acquiesce to somebody who's good looking. But in truth, if somebody is evil, they're evil. So, with this scene, I think the creators really highlight that.
And then you can tell that Roman knows that he’s probably lost a bit of respect in the eyes of everyone in the club. And so, he's trying to grab on to the last vestige of respectability. So, he immediately grabs Canary, and goes, ‘no, no, don't go’. And she's literally trying to run away from him because he's a horrible person.
Ron: But let’s talk about how this scene was shot. You mentioned how, if this was any other director, it would have been quite different. I love that this scene does not involve the male gaze at all. You know that there's a person standing without much on, but we don't get to see that.
And that’s where the female gaze comes in. We are put solely in the shoes of Erika, of Canary not in Roman’s shoes, or Zsasz’s.
Ron: And that is where the difference between a female director and female writers comes in. I'm glad Cathy Yan fought that battle and won, because we rewind to the beginning of the scene when Erika and her friends are laughing and Roman takes that as an affront. That’s something that happens a lot. I mean, there's the whole joke about how men can't stand being laughed at, whereas women are terrified of being killed. That's pretty much exactly what this scene is envisioning. Yes, in a slightly more heightened fashion in the world of Gotham which isn't real. But this is something that could happen as clubs tend to be uncomfortable places at times for somebody who's not a guy. I'm glad Cathy Yan won this.
Mon: And this scene also pushes Canary away from Roman. Up until this point, she's been secretly working with Renee Montoya, but now, now she really wants to take down Roman.
Ron: And she's desperate. You see her in the bathroom, hanging on her phone and she's desperately yelling into it, telling Renee that they have to find Cassandra Cain and get that diamond back and take down Roman. And that's the kind of frenetic movement that we haven't seen from Canary up until now. Because all this while, the threat was away from her. She was just the driver. Now, she's involved.
Mon: And this scene cements Roman’s arc into being an actual evil person. Up until this point, he's been a bit comical. But from this scene onwards, he becomes the real villain of the piece.
Ron: Going back to the face slicing off scene, he was still kind of funny in it. He wasn't also involved directly in it. He was telling Zsasz to do everything. And he was enjoying himself. And you were like ‘okay, this is a bad guy. He’s cutting people's faces off, that's fine’. But here, it's completely different. And I really appreciate how the creative team made this happen.
Mon: And that segues into the final arc of the film, which is when Harley and the Birds of Prey get together. So, it’s just them, these five women—well, four women and one child—against Black Mask and his hordes of henchmen. And interestingly, I noticed that they specifically cast only male extras as Black Mask’s henchmen.
So, the final action sequence takes place in Amusement Mile, where Harley needs to get the Birds of Prey on her side so that they can together fight Roman. And, it’s another fun scene. It brings to characters to the fore; it shows how out of touch Harley can be with just how unimportant she was in Joker's life as well as in the world of supervillainy. Poor thing. You just feel sorry for her.
Ron: Somebody give Harley a hug!
Mon: But the way the characters come together…that final action sequence is exquisite.
Ron: It is so much fun to watch. And you know what? It's so colorful. Where is the color on genre films? I love that about this. They're in a theme park. There’s gonna be all sorts of colourful rides around. And again, they use their surroundings as an advantage against the bad guys. It's so enjoyable.
And, of course, let us not forget the epic hair-tying scene.
One of the most annoying things about genre films is these beautifully made-up women with their open hair gloriously flying around them. And somehow it never gets in their eyes when they're fighting people.
Mon: Anybody with long hair can tell you that it's a pain in the neck.
Ron: It doesn't matter how long it is, it will get in your way. It will always get in your way!
Mon: So, there is this moment where Jurnee Smollett’s Black Canary, she’s fighting and her hair’s getting in her face. Because she's literally just run off to fight this battle. She hasn't really had time to think about it.
And Harley, as we know, she's always had these cute little ponytails. So, she obviously keeps hair-ties with her. As somebody who uses hair-ties, you know that sometimes they snap, so you got to keep extra. So, Harley's got extra hair-ties, and she goes up to Canary and says ‘hair-tie?’, and Canary takes it and she can fight better.
Ron: These are the moments that you get in a film when you have diversity behind the screen and on the screen, and that's why this film works.
That final battle, why is it so enjoyable? Because it’s four women and one child, who we can relate to, being written by women and directed by women. So, it looks, it moves different; and it just feels like something that we haven't seen before.
Mon: And with Cassandra, she's a young teenaged girl. She's not going to go out there and start beating people up. So, the entire premise of that final action sequence is really to protect Cassandra, not only from being captured but also from being hurt. They're all trying their best to keep her out of site.
Ron: And everybody gets in on the action. Renee, who is drunk, and doesn’t really have any weapons also gets in on the action, because she's a detective. She knows how to fight.
Huntress, who has her crossbow, does a great job keeping everybody at bay.
Black Canary, who doesn't really have any weapons, she more than holds her own in this fight. And Harley, just loves smashing things.
Mon: If anybody has read the comics, or is vaguely familiar with the Black Canary, you'll know that she actually is a meta-human. She has a superpower.
Throughout the film, Black Canary does not use that superpower. But why? We find out during this final action sequence.
Renee is the only one who knows about Black Canary’s past. She knows about her mother. That's another sweet little moment, because we find out that Dinah Lance’s mom was also a superhero and she was obviously killed before her time. And that’s why Dinah is obviously afraid of using her powers/
When she finally unleashes the Canary Cry, it takes so much out of her, she actually collapses.
Ron: But the scene is epic. You've kind of been waiting for it throughout the firm, but I felt like I didn't miss the fact that we hadn't seen the Canary Cry before them. But when she does, it's amazing.
But let also talk about Renee's bulletproof vest.
Mon: I love that so much. Harley uncovers a chest which includes a lot of her old stuff. So, she finds her giant hammer, she finds her old outfit. She suggests that one of the others, Renee especially, tries to put it on because it's bulletproof. And, of course, Renee scoffs at it because, have you seen Harley’s outfits?
But it turns out that Renee did take Harley’s advice and she'd actually got the bulletproof outfit underneath her clothes. So that when she does get shot, she's actually still alive. Phew! I was really scared for a moment.
Ron: The final act was kind of setup to make you think that we were going to lose a character, but fortunately we don't. Instead, we got this extremely fun moment when Harley rips open Renee’s jacket to check that she's going to be okay and she's so impressed because Renee is wearing her suit, and she's so impressed; and Renee looks great in it.
Mon: Once again, you have to commend the creators. It’s not like Renee rips off her rather practical detective outfit and starts walking around in Harley’s skimpier clothes. No, she has it hidden underneath, because you don’t want to advertise that you're wearing a bulletproof vest. Otherwise, you will get shot.
Ron: That's a good point.
But we’ve forgotten to mention the central romance in this film.
Mon: Oh yes, of course. It's the most important relationship in all of DCEU.
Ron: Absolutely. Now, Harley and Joker have been a part of the DC world for a very long time. You could say that their pairing is iconic. This film makes you forget the Joker was even a thing, because Harley has a new and proved love interest: the simple egg sandwich.
There is no better scene in cinema than Harley running through the streets of Gotham hanging on to her freshly-made egg sandwich. And then just as she is close to being freedom, Renee’s car stops her, Harley falls to the ground and her sandwich flies out of her hand.
The sheer magnitude of her loss is felt from within and without the screen.
Mon: It really is these sweet moments in the film that make you love not only the film but the characters.
The entire scene is shot to show us that Harley was having a really good day. It's not really about the egg sandwich. It’s just about her being herself. And once again, every moment in the film is about advancing—each character’s arc and their journey. This egg sandwich was a very huge part of Harley's journey. And now it's gone.
Ron: But it's these simple little things that you don't expect to see in genre films. But also, they don't get to be associated with female characters.
Mon: You're right. Tony Stark and his burger have gone down in the annals of comic book history. Now, it's been dethroned.
Ron: And I love the fact that we weren't the only ones who loved that relationship. Twitter, the day after Birds of Prey came out, was awash with tweets about Harley and her sandwich and I was like, ‘You know what? This is a small moment.’ I don't know whether the writers and the director even realized how much it would matter to people but it was so good to see a character like Harley, who has been sexualized and demonized and discarded, just become a person that you absolutely and utterly loved.
So, the plot, the characters, the cinematography is beautiful. But let's not forget that this film has an amazing soundtrack. We could not stop listening to it when we first watched the film. We listened to it on loop for weeks. And then again when we re-watched it for our birthday—we were listening to it again.
For me, Diamonds is one of my favorite songs this year. I can't not dance when I hear it. It’s sampling Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, but with this super cool hip hop beat. And it just makes me move.
But I also love Boss Bitch, which is noisy and fun. And really gets your heart pumping.
We also have Jurnee Smollett’s It's a Man's World. It's so soulful and beautiful. It's very different from Boss Bitch and Diamonds, but it just penetrates your soul.
Which songs do you love?
Mon: I love Joke's on You. It pretty much kicks off the film and echoes Harley's journey. Plus, it's really beautiful to listen to.
But the arrangement for Hit Me with Your Best Shot in this film, it is so surreal and eerie. The song itself is a huge contrast to the scene that it plays along with. But I think it fits with this scary, haunting world of Gotham, especially in that final arc when everything is all foggy and mysterious.
Ron: And what I love about this film is that the soundtrack ties so beautifully into the score by Daniel Pemberton. That's something that I'm always looking for in films. You hear these songs, and you hear the background score, but somehow, they don't work together. This film, for the first time—at least for me—that works brilliantly. When I heard the score, you can hear parts of the songs as well. And that segue between the two of them is absolutely magical.
Mon: Was it just me, or was the entire soundtrack only sung by women?
Ron: That's absolutely right, it was. It's another great way to showcase diversity behind the scenes when your film is about diversity as well.
And that comes through, also, in the costumes. I read about Cathy Yan speaking with the costume designer, and the actors. So, Margot Robbie, because she was also involved as a producer, had some input into how the characters would look.
We have spoken about Suicide Squad and Harley’s costumes, which were extremely impractical, highly sexualized and kind of disturbing to watch. The clothes in Birds of Prey; are they revealing? Yes. Harley walks around in shorts for a lot of the time. Black Canary has a golden sports bra on view most of the time. But they aren't sexualized, and again it comes back to the gaze of the person behind the camera. Plus, the clothes are fashionable versions of what we see in everyday life.
Mon: The practical look of the costumes, apparently, was the start of a lot of backlash towards the release of this film. I would say a lot of it was unnecessary. There's no point in having Harley walk around in tiny hot pants, because it isn't practical. And also, I feel like a lot of people used the costumes and the general casting of these actors as an excuse to not watch this film.
There is a very vocal set of fandoms, usually the most conservative, who've decided that some films aren't for them. We'll never know why they feel like this.
Films like Birds of Prey cater to a larger audience—not to a different audience—a larger audience. Because superhero and genre fare has, for a very long time, targeted a very narrow demographic. It's the 21st century, there's a whole world out there, and they’re bringing in the money. Who do you think helped Birds of Prey, make buck? It was the larger; marginalized female audience who were flocking to see this film.
And they were watching this film because the characters were given agency, were given storylines, were given fleshed out characterizations.
Ron: Some of the criticisms towards the film was that it became a Harley vehicle, instead of being about the Birds of Prey. But if you look at the DCEU universe, and the fans that are watching it, you can't just say this is a movie about the Birds of Prey, you need to have some connection with the rest of the canon, because otherwise people won't know what's happening.
Mon: And they don't even try to find out either. It's like ‘oh, who are these people? I want to see Harley’. Okay, this is a good way to get them in.
Ron: Exactly. So that's a criticism that I don't understand at all.
Another thing that people were saying was that the Birds of Prey has always had Batgirl in it. Not having Batgirl in this film, yes, her absence is felt, because she is a huge part of this group in the comics.
But we don't know the inner workings of Warner Bros. and the DCEU. We don't know why Batgirl couldn't be in this film; we don't know whether we will see Batgirl on screen anytime soon. Apparently, there was a movie being written by Joss Whedon, but fortunately that is gone. That man should not come near superhero films at all.
But what happens to Batgirl? We don't know. There is going to be The Batman movie. We have seen Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon in the film trailers, but we haven't seen whether he has grown-up daughter who can become Batgirl. So, we don't know which direction this particular franchise is going to go.
So, yet another criticism was about Cassandra Cain and how she came across as a bit of a generic teen character, instead of as the Cassandra Cain/ Orphan that we meet in DC Comics. That is a valid criticism. But on the other hand, Orphan is a very different kind of character, and perhaps trying to explain her backstory without giving viewers some time to connect with the character before she becomes the superhero that we know in the comics, would not have worked.
Maybe we’re giving the movie a lot of leeway because it was an enjoyable experience and we do like the diversity that was showcased in this film. But in all honesty, the kind of things that were being said about Birds of Prey would not have been said about films that feature male leads.
Mon: The only valid criticism I'm willing to take against this film is that we don't necessarily need assault storylines in a film empowering women. I know that a lot of people were disturbed by that.Perhaps if it had come with trigger warnings. People would have known what to expect.
But aside from that, the way that these scenes play out are very subtle, very nuanced; again, not gratuitous. The film based itself in reality, despite being fantastical.
Will we get a second part?
Ron: I am desperate for Birds of Prey 2. I want to see more of Black Canary, of Renee, of Huntress, and maybe even our first glimpse of Batgirl in the DCEU.
I think the wider reception of this film, amongst the audience that doesn't usually get catered to, is really positive. It does deserve a second part, especially when films like Suicide Squad are also getting sequels, and that film was critically panned and widely disliked by the fan base that it was catering to.
Mon: I completely agree with you. There's so much scope to expand the universe of this film. We could possibly see Poison Ivy, we could possibly see Oracle, who knows, it would be so much fun. Just getting to see those Birds of Prey fight and work together as a team, with no strings attached, would be worth every penny.
Ron: Absolutely. Bring on Birds of Prey 2, DC.
What did you think of Birds of Prey? Let us know.
Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]
Ron: We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!
Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.
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Transcription by Otter.ai and Ron.