I was rather hesitant watching this the first time when it came out, as the marketing was so aggressively feminist that I thought any kind of entertainment would have been left on the floor to get the message out about female empowerment. And make no mistake, this is exactly as feminist as the marketing was promising it would be. Even if you have progressive urges it’s so in your face about its message that it can be kinda too much.
What I didn’t expect is how much fun the movie is despite all that. Most people talking about the movie kind of undersell just how insane and insanely amusing it is to watch. The action scenes groove with style and panache, Harley is the crazy spirit guide to get us viewers up to speed and takes us on a wild ride and I don’t even like the Harley Quinn character in general, but here it just works.
After having split from the Joker, and then publicly making it official (foregoing the kind of protection by fear it provided her so far), Harley gets embroiled in a conflict over a diamond that got stolen from a big, crazy criminal by a street-hustling girl in over her head. This leads to a final confrontation not just between her, Harley as her protector, and the criminals, but a couple of other do-gooders as well (the eponymous Birds of Prey).
Of all the DCU movies this is the most marginal one and yet one of the best the DCU has produced in terms of raw entertainment and sheer audacity. It takes its female empowerment message and hones it into a weapon of sheer kinetic action aimed to make things move with style.
The fights are brutal (though not gory or bloody), the dialogue is snappy and most of the characters are easy to get invested in. This is like a fusion of a Guy Ritchie and a superhero movie and as unlikely as that mix sounds, it succeeds across the board at making it work. Highly recommended.
The Entropy Pump 