Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
★★★ — Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Comic book cinema had, by 2020, grown into a well-oiled machine of sequels, team-ups and franchise maintenance, so any film trying to carve out a distinct identity within that machine faced a considerable uphill task. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) was Warner Bros. and DC Films' attempt to do exactly that: spin a recognisable character out of a troubled ensemble picture and give her something wilder, looser, and altogether more anarchic to do. The film marks the feature debut of director Cathy Yan, a Chinese-American filmmaker whose previous work, the low-budget drama Dead Pigs, had earned strong notices on the festival circuit. Stepping from independent drama into a studio action picture is no small leap, and the production, handled under the LuckyChap Entertainment banner (the production company co-founded by lead actress Margot Robbie), carried with it a stated ambition to put women both in front of and behind the camera in ways the superhero genre had rarely managed before. The screenplay, by Christina Hodson, centres on Harley Quinn breaking free from the shadow of the Joker and falling into a collision of competing interests involving a stolen diamond, a crime lord with very expensive taste, and a motley collection of women who have little reason to trust one another.
The film sits in a curious position within the broader DC Extended Universe. Harley Quinn had first appeared on screen in Suicide Squad (2016), a film that drew a polarising response despite Robbie's performance attracting near-universal praise. That she was given this solo vehicle owes everything to the fact that audiences responded to the character even when the film around her did not quite hold together. Robbie herself, who had already demonstrated remarkable range in films like The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019), arrived here as both lead and producer, which perhaps explains why the film's energy revolves so completely around her. Alongside her, Ewan McGregor takes on the role of Roman Sionis, known as Black Mask, with Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Jurnee Smollett rounding out the ensemble as a detective, an assassin, and a vigilante respectively. It is a cast that reads well on paper, mixing established names with performers who had been knocking at the door of leading roles for some time. Whether the assembled talent coheres on screen is, of course, another question entirely, and one that action fans familiar with ensemble crime pictures (think of the sustained, purposeful chaos of something like The Raid 2 (2014)) might find themselves weighing quietly as the film proceeds. The runtime sits at 109 minutes, polished but unremarkable in its technical presentation, and the whole thing arrives wrapped in a bright, neon-saturated visual palette that announces its intentions loudly from the opening frame.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) arrives with the chaotic energy of a sugar rush, colourful, loud, and initially intoxicating. Margot Robbie IS Harley Quinn, full stop. She embodies the character with such anarchic charm and wounded vulnerability that it's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Ewan McGregor, meanwhile, played with gleeful menace as Black Mask, a villain so petulantly unhinged he almost steals the show. The soundtrack slaps, the neon-drenched aesthetic pops, and there's genuine fun to be had in Harley's post-Joker liberation narrative. On a first watch, it's easy to get swept up in the mayhem. But the film's foundations wobble. Beyond Robbie and McGregor, the casting feels curiously mismatched. The rest of the "girl gang" never quite clicks as a unit, their chemistry forced rather than organic. The action sequences, lack the kinetic inventiveness that might have elevated them beyond serviceable. And there's an odd tonal dissonance throughout: the film seems simultaneously aware of and trapped by its own absurdity, teetering between genuine character work and self-parody without ever deciding which it wants to be. At times, it feels less like a cohesive story and more like a series of music video vignettes loosely strung together. A messy but intermittently delightful Harley Quinn showcase that succeeds more as a character study than as a superhero ensemble. Robbie's star power and McGregor's delicious villainy carry it through the rougher patches, and the feminist-lite messaging lands with reasonable sincerity. But it's a film that knows how to make an entrance without quite knowing where to go afterwards. Entertaining, uneven, and ultimately more style than substance, but what style it is.
What lingers for me, after sitting with it a while, is that specific frustration you feel when a film has all the right ingredients and still can't quite bring them together into a satisfying whole. Robbie's commitment is beyond question, and McGregor looks like he's having the time of his life, which counts for a great deal. But the sense that the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts is hard to shake. It's the kind of film I'd happily put on in the background on a Friday evening and enjoy in patches, whilst knowing that a second proper watch would only confirm the cracks rather than paper over them. Fun, yes. Forgettable in all the wrong places, also yes. Sometimes the entrance really is the whole show.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2020 | Watched: 2026-04-01
Trailer
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Related on Movies With Macca
More with Margot Robbie: Suicide Squad (2016) · The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) · Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
