The long version of the narrative is pretty much the same, only with bits of backstory that have been run through a blender and strung out irregularly throughout something like the first four-fifths of the plot. Circumstances surrounding the theft of an ungodly large diamond put Harley into contact with some of these enemies: Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), a long-suffering police detective Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a nightclub singer presently working as Roman's driver and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), the teenage pickpocket who ended up with the diamond. Foremost among these is Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), a crime boss with a penchant for torture, and a long list of enemies in his own right. The short version of the narrative: Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, whose enthusiasm for returning to the character was apparently the driving force for this film's existence she has a producer credit) has just been dumped by the unseen Joker (the happily-forgotten Jared Leto one), which means that everybody in Gotham City that she's antagonised over the years sees a ripe opportunity for revenge. But on balance, it's a "fun", "lively" movie, even if it is so calculated and effortful in being "fun" and "lively" that it feels necessary to put those words in scare quotes. Of course, Birds of Prey gets there it does not, I think, get there with flying colors, and it has in fact gone to somewhat baffling effort to sabotage itself. And I say this as somebody who wasn't nearly as hostile to Suicide Squad as many people: it absolutely should not take any effort to meet that goal. And really, this is the best thing that could have ever happened to Birds of Prey, since it means the only thing it absolutely definitely has to do in order to qualify as an artistic success is to be better than that movie. The film exists in the increasingly vague remains of what was once the DC Extended Universe: it is most likely a sequel to 2016's Suicide Squad, though never explicitly so beyond the fact of having one actor from that movie playing the same character in this one. Every word of this applies to the film attached to that title as well, and while I spent large stretches of Birds of Prey ready to surrender if it would just, like, calm the hell down for five minutes, I'll allow that even simulated personality is more than the competition is able to get up to. Whatever actual fun and bounciness attain are more because one has decided in the face of all that mugging, to permit the title to have its way it is perhaps more of a simulation of humor and personality that it offers, than actual humor and personality, but it offers that simulation so hard. It's extremely fucking eager to impress upon you with how quirky and zany and Fun! it is, and it's also the most exhausting, tiresome thing. I have nothing but scorn for the full title Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), which I will only henceforth refer to as Birds of Prey in the interest of bringing this review in under 3000 words, * but credit where credit's due, it's unquestionably right for the movie it's attached to.
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