I wasn’t typing out that long title the movie had. Nope nope nope!

The studio has changed the name of the movie to Harley Quinn: Birds Of Prey, which is still a bit off in my opinion, but I’m not the marketing team sooooooo **shrugs**. I will say that I did enjoy Birds Of Prey. I’ve seen it twice. The first time was an early screening in IMAX format on February 5th. That was a fun experience. The visuals were nice and Margot Robbie shines as Harley once again. I put Birds Of Prey over Suicide Squad and Justice League. Emphatically! Birds Of Prey didn’t knock me out of my seat, but I laughed and had a good time watching it. I didn’t leave feeling disappointed like I did with SS or JL. I put the ole AMC A List to use and watched Birds Of Prey in Dolby Cinema. I will always speak highly of Dolby format. Crisp visuals, a booming sound system, and comfy chairs that might make you doze off. Yes, I love it. Unless you really want to spend the extra dollars or you have a subscription service, I wouldn’t say you had to watch this movie in a premium format. There are a few scenes that popped, but overall you’ll be good with regular digital format. Robbie’s portrayal of Harley was one of the few highlights of Suicide Squad (there aren’t many), and she brings that spirit to Birds Of Prey. Harley originated in Batman: The Animated Series, and I felt that same zany yet deadly vibe from Robbie in this. Bravo there. I hope to see Margot play her a few more times. In this film Harley has been dumped by the Joker, so in order to have protection in Gotham Harley has to make a deal with the maniacal mob boss Black Mask, who doesn’t like her to begin with. That deal leads to encounters with Gotham PD, killers, an assassin, and a pick pocket who has ticked off the aforementioned mob boss. Now I’ve been a fan of DC Comics for over two decades, but I don’t read too many of their comic series. I only own a few DC graphic novels and some assorted issues of Batman and Superman. I have always been more into their animated universe and their live action movies. I’m saying that because I didn’t have a lot of background on several of the characters presented in the film, so I was able to be less critical of what I saw. I could still tell some of the characters weren’t written based on their comic book counterparts. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but some hardcore fans may have been disappointed with lack of development and some of the liberties taken. Black Mask for example. I enjoyed Ewan McGregor’s over the top portrayal of him, but previous to this movie most of my knowledge of the character came from the animated feature Batman: Under The Red Hood. McGregor’s performance didn’t mirror that Black Mask, but his portrayal was fine and he made me laugh. It was good to see Rosie Perez as Detective Montoya, a character that also originated in Batman: The Animated series. Casting Perez added humor to the role, and to the cast as a whole. Without going too deep into the rest, I’d like to see Harley Quinn and the Birds Of Prey get developed further in the future. This movie leaves that possibility wide open so hopefully some well written and directed projects get the green light.

There has been some controversy over this film because the box office numbers didn’t hit projected expectations. A great deal of people were using those stats to say “See…this movie sucks” or even celebrating that the movie didn’t hit certain goals. Weird stance, especially if you didn’t even see the film. If you did see it and didn’t like it, that’s fine. Some opinions and thoughts I’ve read over this movie though……WHEW!! I’d like to have a conversation with my fellow Defy Life brothers at Take A Knee For Marvel VS DC about this movie. Get at me fellas! If you haven’t seen the film, I recommend checking it out on a discount day. See my live review here:  https://www.facebook.com/MoviesWithMigs/videos/594128691145311/

CHEERS!
Migs Rodriguez