Birds of Prey 2020
I never saw the first Harley Quinn movie, which got terrible reviews, but this one got better reviews and I was able to get the 4K blu-ray on sale on Black Friday. $8 for a 4K disc is great, plus a nice glittery slipcover. And otherwise Black Friday was a little disappointing. So maybe not a great idea, but for about the cost of going to see the movie at a theater, I could own it. This is why I have so many movies.
It isn’t a great movie, but it has some neat things going for it. For one thing it is very colorful, so I think the HDR part of 4k really helps. The movie just looks great. Also, you jump into the movie with a lot going on, then they track backwards and forwards to cover everything else that needs to happen. This keeps the viewers on their toes and makes the movie more like a noir detective story (with a heavy Tarantino influence) than the usual superhero movie. In fact, Harley Quinn doesn’t seem to have any real superpowers, she is just very chaotic and mostly evil. By chopping up the timeline, a lot can go on without getting boring, filling in exposition every now and then in a quick flashback. But after that wears off and the movie really gets going, there isn’t much to save it and it goes downhill. The final big conflict almost feels more like a fight from the old Batman TV series (except the movie is R rated so there are a few very violent moments). There are parts that I just wish worked better than they do (the crossbow killer), but for the most part the movie succeeds more in not being bad than in being good. It is right on the border of a B or B-, but I will go with a B- because it comes so close to not being good.
Written: 06 Feb 2021
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital