f13.net

Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC9tWq_W0nM)

A movie made because that Joker bimbo from Suicide Squad was kinda hot. Being abused is sexy.

I haven't watched the trailer because there is no way on Gods Green Lantern that I will go see this. But its a movie coming out in 2020...

So Suicide Squad was a terrible movie but Robbie was fantastic as Harley Quinn. She and Will Smith and the fire-dude made the movie watchable despite its shit plot. And I will likely go see this because I am a sucker for comic movies. She looks like she's having fun.

But man, I just do not fucking get this movie at all. It's like it believes that Suicide Squad wasn't trash so let's do more of that. McGregor looks like he's also having fun as whoever the fuck he's supposed to be. DC continues to make puzzling choices about what to greenlight and why, and seem almost as bad as Kathleen Kennedy at having no long-term plan worth a shit.

Suicide Squad suckered me in with an amazing trailer, this one did not do that.

It is the weird world of Hollywood. "People like Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn! Let's figure out a way to do more of that!"  Though with Gunn, maybe they really did say, "Let's back up and do Suicide Squad the concept right this time". So puzzling.

This is trash.

It looks like a simple cash-in on the idea that Margot Robbie is hot enough to sell tickets to a 2 hour cosplay event.  And, well, she probably is.

It just shows you though how messed up creative thinking can be. You've got guys who think: even people who didn't like [this movie] liked [this performer]. So they say, let's make [that movie sequel] with [that movie performer] and fix it by adding [more intellectual property]. But here (as often is the case) they're adding [intellectual property] that is [not good for that performer's character]. Like, the entire appeal of Birds of Prey, done right, makes Oracle the central character and relies upon an established universe of existing other female characters to work well.

Whereas what they seem to be trying (vaguely) to do here is solve a basic problem of the Harley Quinn character that numerous DC writers haven't been able to entirely figure out--she was a great character at the outset but entirely connected or linked to the Joker, and an expression of his evil/malice as a character. To make her independently interesting takes something rather like making Barbara Gordon into Oracle--you have to see something in the character (she was a librarian!) and go with it in a new direction. In this case, that ought to be: she was a psychologist! But there isn't time in a single movie--she's a character who intensely depends upon a relationship to a bunch of other established characters.

So the suits fuck it up again, with the connivance of dumb executive editors at DC.

Sure, if you put her in cheerleader booty shorts. This (https://i.redd.it/vdr8mvhk4r631.jpg) is a little harder to sell.

Visually, Birds of Prey is just taking all the worst aspects of the Suicide Squad scenes with Joker in them and amping that up to the level of "Eating paste."

Oddly enough, Khal, the "director's cut" edition of Suicide Squad actually did some interesting things with Harley in conversations with some of the other characters between set pieces in the scenes that were cut that made it seem like she was psychoanalyzing the Squad, trying to gain some kind of advantage or at least see who might be useful. It didn't necessarily make the movie better because the movie's problem (besides trying to play in a universe as if the universe was already firmly established, which it wasn't) was the action set pieces were mostly shit and the villains looked stupid. Harley can be an interesting character when that aspect of her history is utilized, but I'm not sure this movie is going to do that. Even if it does, it'll be filled to the gills with other characters that will need development and backstories, so will likely end up just being a loud, chaotic mess.

This continues to be DC's problem: they want to have a cinematic universe, but don't want to put in any of the work.

It's DC, why would they "put in work."

Their lead superhero has every major superpower combined and their second biggest superhero has no superpowers and is just rich. Their biggest villains are a clown that couldn't actually take a bullet, scary bald late-stage capitalist and pussy Thanos.

Such disrespect for Gorilla Grodd.

Having read a lot of the New 52/Rebirth books, it's pretty clear that DC's writers are all trying to write story arcs like they are self-contained movie scripts, and they are all stuck in a kind of mid-point between Watchmen grimdark and Image tough and gritty reimagining. I'm not saying that DC's screenwriters haven't suffered brain damage somewhere along the way, but the source material has gone from 4-color silliness to Zak Snyder is God in the last decade.

Basically, yeah--they want a cinematic universe, but not only do they not want to put in the work, they still have suits involved who are embarrassed by the entire idea of superheroes. Bad combo.

The trailer does this series no favors.  Jesus Christ.

https://comicbook.com/dc/2020/02/08/birds-of-prey-opening-weekend-worse-than-green-lantern-dc/


My feelings on this are between  :uhrr: that this was even made and  :grin:.

well if this mega flops prepare for another round of the stupidest part of the culture wars online

female director/screenwriter/leads this is gonna be a fucking EXTRA dumb week on twitter

I really hope that if it sucks people can just say "this sucked". I kind of think after all the Round #1 Culture Wars that's where things settled on the Ghostbusters reboot, for example. In the end, a basically sensible position wins out: sure, Rey is fine; no problem, recast Yennefer and Triss so they don't look like the video game; etc.

Good is good; suck is suck. It evens out.

What, this came out? Looks like the studio didn't want us to notice.

--Dave

I thought about going to see this tomorrow, but I'm not sure I can muster up enough energy to blow 2-ish hours on it.

Metacritic

Critics: 60
Users: 5.9

It's universally loathed garbage.

I no idea it was even out. There is zero buzz on it.

I saw a poster.  And I disliked it.

SF Chronicle writer absolutely fucking destroyed it. https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/movies-tv/review-movies-dont-get-any-worse-than-birds-of-prey-this-is-the-bottom

Holywood reporter types and every female critic says its great, subverting the male gaze, other shit.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-birds-prey-deconstructs-male-gaze-1277232
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/birds-of-prey-producer-shuts-down-criticism_n_5e3cf4c8c5b6bb0ffc0e5038
https://time.com/5779002/birds-of-prey-feminism-franchise-movies/


So yeah here we go with this shit again.

I am just going to assume that both sides are equally wrong and missing the point.  In the meantime, I will be just fine not watching this movie, and also not bashing it because I am aware it was not meant for me to enjoy.

I'm not sure who was meant to enjoy it to be honest.

Except Haemish. But for entirely the wrong reasons.

Birds of Prey Pitch Meeting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Dba8p94Jc)

I decided against going to see it this weekend and spent that time watching Carpenter's Prince of Darkness instead. If Ryan is even remotely on target with the story synopsis, I made the absolute right choice.

Disregard, wrong thread

Well, to be fair, Prince of Darkness is one of Carpenter's best works. Kinda hard to go wrong there.

This movie being a flop is about the only good thing about this year.

HEY DID YOU KNOW HARLEY QUINN'S ASS IS IN THIS MOVIE??? Maybe HARLEY QUINN you should HARLEY QUINN try out this HARLEY QUINN HUBBA HUBBA movie?

Just when I feel I'm being too cynical about this shit.

To be honest, I actually think that name change made sense.  I saw the thread title here, saw references to the movie elsewhere, and failed to make the connection to Harley Quinn.  I didn't even remember what it was until I opened this thread.

That said, if the movie is pants, then it doesn't matter.  But it was dumb for them not to put it in the name from the start.

The previous title of the movie was "Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)".  It was right there in the title, what more do you want!?   :why_so_serious:

I'm with Cyrrex, I had no idea this was a HQ movie because I've never heard of Birds of Prey as a super group. It's certainly weird to change a name mid-release, but after Cats getting a patch anything is possible.

They could actually probably combine BoP and Cats and make a movie that is exponentially better.  I still would not watch it.

Strangely, I think Margot Robbie is super good looking....but I have never watched anything she is in.

Edge of Tomorrow got the same treatment after it underperformed.  That movie was pretty great though.

Pretty sure Edge of Tomorrow launched as Edge of Tomorrow, and they changed the working title from All You Need is Kill during filming.

All You Need is Kill is the name of the manga it's based on.  It was released theatrically as Edge of Tomorrow and then towards the end of its run/home video they named it to Live Die Repeat.

That was a good movie. Go watch that movie. Don't watch this movie (probably).

It was based on a book, not a manga.   :-P

Anyways, just googled it.  Yeah, All You Need is Kill was the working title, but later changed in development (though released in Japan under that same name).  They never actually changed the title of the film, but in later posters, and on the DVD release, they made the tag line "Live. Die. Repeat." bigger than the actual title of the movie.  Hadn't seen that before.

I was going to say.  As far as I knew, they never changed the name of Edge of Tomorrow, they just put an insanely huge emphasis on the Tag Line in all of the print advertising / posters and stuff.   Pretty sure I would have noticed if our theater had been required to change the title of the movie mid way through its run on our display boards.

I took the hit for you. The movie is better than most of the other DC fare but is not good. Its very weirdly comic booky (in that goons very conspicuously don't have guns until its dramatically appropriate and the police are wildly incompetent) and doesn't introduce this to you in any way. Which i kind of like but its also very weird given DC's other fare. This is supposedly in the same universe as Suicide Squad and Batman vs Superman but... Harley invades a police station with a bean bag grenade launcher and none of the police have guns until one (and only one) has one (and only one) pistol and then he is disarmed in melee. Aside from a few instances its so weirdly devoid of murder its disconcerting. This would be fine if the movie were not coming on the heels of those other titles... but its hard to get yourself into that frame after Harley tells you its a sequel.  On the other hand it is probably the best single thing about the movie besides Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who does not get enough lines)

Its R but i don't even know what or why they're spending the R on. People are only killed in a few scenes and none of that really needed to be on screen. Maybe it was going to be R because of cussing so they just made a few other scenes gory on re-shoots? But i don't remember too many as it was so i am in the dark.

The music choice is very uninspired except for like... one or two songs. Generic Youtube playlist uninspired. Literally for my DnD game i needed some "fight music" on the fly and in 10 seconds picked out black betty. Youtube wanted to play Barracuda after that because of course it did. Both of those are in this movie and in the same order.

It needs a lot of editing. Its an hour and fifty minutes and they could cut a half an hour of repeated exposition and flashbacks which repeat the plot repeatedly. They interrupt the flow of scenes that actually matter; scenes which provide characterization and growth for central characters.

Conclusions: all of DC's movies would be a lot better if they were more like Birds of Prey; more comic booky, more concerned with treating the worlds their characters inhabit on the terms of the stories and seeing where this goes. Less concerned about realism and grittyness and murder. Birds of Prey would be a lot better if it was 30 minutes shorter, PG13, and paid a 13 year old 50 dollars to find some music that was hip with the kids in an afternoon.

This was the most fun I've ever had at the movies. Basically girl Deadpool, but somehow flashier. Soundtrack was great, but I was disappointed they played Black Betty because that is one worn out tune. It's mainly Harley's story, so she gets the most screen time, but towards the end they do a good job of getting the gang even time and lines.

One of the things I loved about this show is that there is not a big drawn out "boss" fight. This was done well. That said, I would have preferred a few minutes less of battle royale and a bit more story.

Still. Show was a riot. All actors nailed it.

Not sure if serious  :headscratch:

I also had a good time though i wasnt expecting high art so it can be bouyed by low expectations. The movie is fun and stupid and knows it for the most part. It puts effort into its gags.

Sonic was a better movie though and more fun.

Absolutely

.

Yap, this was great. Harley Quinn was very likeable.

Wouldn't say great but it was a fun enjoyable movie.

This was on HBO finally, so I watched it.

It was decent but that has to come with a few caveats.

1) It's not a Birds of Prey movie - they are barely in it and are mostly window dressing, especially Huntress (who was a complete waste of Mary Elizabeth Winstead)
2) It's absolutely a Harley Quinn movie
3) Ewan McGregor is clearly there to just flounce about and collect a paycheck. He chews scenery just for the fuck of it, reminding me very much of Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face in Batman Forever

All that aside, it's a decent Harley Quinn movie. If you like that character and liked Margot Robbie's take on the character from Suicide Squad, this is the sequel to that. It's got some decent fight choreography, though I think the finale set piece was the weakest of the bunch. Black Canary is ok (you might recognize her as Letty from Lovecraft Country) and the guy playing Victor Szaz was good. Come for Robbie and the batshitness of Harley Quinn, there's not really much else to stay for beyond that.

Had to stop myself from talking through the movie. 1-2 good harley quinn bits don't make up for the utter lack of quality from the rest of the cast, the script, or even the costume design. Fuck i've seen better outfits on CW shows.

They decided "no 'Fan Service'" (sexy costumes) and it turns out that wasn't what the audience (male or female) wanted.

--Dave

I mean I didn't mind no fan service. What I think people didn't appreciate was 3 starving college girls waiting outside a club with no dress code and indie tracks only. It's also a movie where casting 3 girls who are about as physically threatening as 3 starving college girls on gluten free diets doesn't do them any favors.