Along withSonic the Hedgehogand Robert Downey, Jr.’sDolittle,Birds of Preywas one of the last major Hollywood releases before movie theaters were indefinitely closed to accommodate the spread of coronavirus. While the virus is obviously a big factor in the movie’s failure to break even at the box office,Sonicmanaged to pull in blockbuster numbers in the same release window. Audiences were skeptical aboutBirds of Preybecause it was a direct sequel toSuicide Squadand they’d beenlet down by the DCEU a bunch of times before.
Ultimately,Birds of Prey’s biggest problem is that it can’t decide what it wants to be. Throughout its 109-minute runtime, it’s torn between being two different movies. It’s set up as an ensemble team-up movie but styled as aDeadpool-esque fourth-wall-breaking Harley Quinn solo movie. The ensemble element is at odds with Harley omnisciently controlling the movielike the Merc with a Mouth. Warner Bros. basically admitted they couldn’t decide what this movie was supposed to be when they changed the title toHarley Quinn: Birds of Preyin the middle of its release. The intention, apparently, was to boost box office numbers, but it only served to confirm what skeptical viewers already suspected: Warner botched another DC movie.
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Director Cathy Yan has revealed thatWarner Bros. meddled in her vision forBirds of Prey, and the revelation surprised no one. Yan didn’t mention anything specific, but studio interference is obvious in the final product and it fits an unfortunate pattern with this particular studio. Patty Jenkins had to fight Warner Bros. for all the best parts ofWonder Woman. In the middle of makingJustice League, Zack Snyder suddenly had a two-hour runtime limit enforced on an ambitious epic that’s now being released in its original form clocking in at four hours. David Ayer directedSuicide Squadon an absurdly accelerated schedule as a dark, brooding drama, then Warner Bros. hired the editors of the well-received comedic trailer to recut the entire movie as a feature-length trailer, which unsurprisingly resulted in a disaster.
After Harley’s scenes inSuicide Squadwere overtly framed with the male gaze in mind, Margot Robbie joinedBirds of Preyas a producer to have more creative control. But ultimately, the studio is plunking down $100 million, so they’re the ones who get the final say. And it’s a shame, because a lot of recent failures, likeSolo: A Star Wars StoryandThe Predator, would’ve benefited from studio executives stepping back and letting the director (or directors, in the case ofSolo’s original helmers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) do their job.
Christina Hodson’s screenplay was the focal point of a lot ofBirds of Prey’s more negative reviews, because the writing exemplifies the aimlessness and indecisiveness of the movie as a whole. Hodson’s scriptoften uses nonlinear storytelling for the sake of being nonlinearand not because presenting the scenes out of order actually enhances the story. For example, in one scene, Harley infiltrates a police station with no context, so the audience has no engagement with the action, then her voiceover explains the context of what she’s doing over an exposition-filled montage, then the police station shootout continues. The structure has no purpose. The movie just plods from plot point to plot point in the most obvious ways possible. When nonlinear storytelling is used this way, it just comes off as lazy screenwriting.
It’s unclear ifBirds of Prey’s script problems are a result of Warner Bros. pushing for specific rewrites, but either way, the plot is completely muddled. Its narrator wants it to be a carefree hangout movie with no stakes or danger where the main priority is eating a breakfast sandwich, but it’s also beholden to the action-driven three-act structure ofthe average comic book blockbuster, and the result is kind of a mess. Most of the movie is spent waiting for Cassandra Cain to poop out the MacGuffin.
WhereasDeadpoolused its R rating to accurately portray ‘Pool as he’s characterized in the comics, Birds of Prey’s R rating isjust used for gratuitous violence. This movie wouldn’t have suffered from not showing Black Mask cutting off a guy’s face or not showing Black Mask getting torn limb from limb by an exploding grenade.Birds of Preyuses its R rating in the same way that the 2019Hellboyreboot did, exhibiting excessive gore just because it could.
With stunning visuals, energetic direction, anda bunch of great performances,Birds of Preyis far from a bad movie. It holds together much better thanSuicide Squador the theatrical cut ofJustice League. But it held itself back by going for two opposing styles at once. But if it had committed to being either an ensemble team-up movie or a Harley Quinn solo adventure, it could’ve been so much better. Maybe, one glorious day, Warner Bros. will learn to give filmmakers a little creative freedom.
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