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Spoilers Birds of Prey and the Spoilertabulous Grading and Discussion

Grade the movie!


  • Total voters
    23
I take you you never watched Arrow, Batman: The Animated Series or Gotham?
 
It's mostly fine but nothing that stood out to me very much. I'd certainly rank it at the bottom of all of the DCEU movies.
It gives me no pleasure to say this, but I tend to agree. I don't think it was bad per se, and there were some good performances, but it failed to engage me in any significant way.

Mind you, Snyder's entries are actively crap in many respects, but when they're interesting, they're more interesting than anything in BoPatFEoOHQ. If nothing else, they gave me my all-time favorite screen version of one of my favorite characters, Lois Lane. And I've never hated Suicide Squad as much as I'm supposed to. I loved, loved, loved Shazam! and Wonder Woman, and really enjoyed Aquaman as well.

But I walked out of BoPetc. without any of the exhilaration a good movie gives me, and with no eagerness to see it again -- though I will, when the Blu-ray comes out, because I want to keep my DCEU collection complete. Who knows, maybe I'll like it better on a second viewing? That does happen sometimes. :shrug:
 
Trailers very rarely ever present a plot for these kinds of movies. It sounds to me like you have more of a problem with the overall way movies are marketed these days, rather than this movie specifically.
While it's certainly true that most previews are both ear-crushingly cacauphonous and brain-meltingly boring in their identical structure...

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... most previews aren't asking us to root for violent criminals who assault cops and blow up urban chemical factories (presumably poisoning the surroundings and probably killing at least a few night shift workers in the process). So, I'd argue this flick had a particular responsibility to tease a compelling story in its preview. But, what do I know? I'm just a guy, and WB's the one with the fantabulous hit on its hands. ;)
 
Suicide Squad also had Will Smith and a great trailer backing it up. Birds of Prey was so under the radar that I almost didn't realize that it was coming out this past week. I also think that the R-rating was a mistake. If they had pulled back on it just a little to get a PG-13, I think that teenagers would be a very key demographic for this film.

This did it for me. I go to see superhero films with my kids and Harley was a wait for mom and dad to rent it on a Friday night kind of film....but then again so was Joker.
 
It's not too far from a PG-13 from what I remember so it is surprising they didn't go that direction with maybe an unrated video release.
 
It's funny, my theatre actually did have the full title Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn on the screen where they list all the movies and the show times. As a result, it's the one movie where the title was actually in smaller print than the show times.
 
It took WB until after the movie was released to realize that the titular characters were only the costars to the character that was the better marketing tool anyways?

Sounds about right, sadly.
 
https://ew.com/movies/2020/02/10/birds-of-prey-title-change-disappointing-box-office/

But it seems distributor Warner Bros. has a theory of its own: Potential viewers must not be aware that Birds of Prey focuses on Margot Robbie‘s Harley Quinn. Well, the studio has now taken steps to make that loud and clear…or rather, louder and clearer. Though the film’s official title is Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), take a look at the listings for your local multiplex and you’ll see something slightly different: Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. AMC, Regal, and Cinemark‘s websites all currently display this title for the film.


Sigh. Another flop for Ewan McGregor at WB studios. His other one was "Doctor Sleep"
 
While it's certainly true that most previews are both ear-crushingly cacauphonous and brain-meltingly boring in their identical structure...

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... most previews aren't asking us to root for violent criminals who assault cops and blow up urban chemical factories (presumably poisoning the surroundings and probably killing at least a few night shift workers in the process). So, I'd argue this flick had a particular responsibility to tease a compelling story in its preview. But, what do I know? I'm just a guy, and WB's the one with the fantabulous hit on its hands. ;)
Harley is and always has been an anti-hero, so it seems a bit silly to be mad that she is acting like an anti-hero. It sounds to me like you have more of an overall problem with anti-heroes and criminals as the main characters in movies than with this movie specifically.
Honestly I was never that bothered by the trailers not promoting the plot. The draw of this movie is Harley, the other characters, and the action, so that is what they focused on in the marketing. I liked the plot, but that is not necessarily what really draws people to these kinds of movies.
It's not too far from a PG-13 from what I remember so it is surprising they didn't go that direction with maybe an unrated video release.
Yeah, I was actually surprised how tame the action scenes really were, I was expecting it to be a lot more graphic than it ended up being. I think if they just got rid of the fucks, and did a couple quick edits in a couple scenes it could have easily been PG-13.
 
Somehow I doubt audiences going to see this movie (or not, as the case may be) would be unaware that it's a Harley Quinn movie. I mean she's all over the posters, trailers, billboards and standies. Kinda hard to miss....
All the title change is going to do is better grab the attention of those that have such an amazingly short attention span that didn't make it to the end of the original title.

Personally, I'll be waiting for home video on this one. Mostly because I rarely go to the cinema these days, but also because Cassandra Cain is one of my favourite DC characters ever, and I know that no matter how good or bad the movie is otherwise, there's always going to be a part of me mentally fidgeting at *this* being her live action debut (not that even animation has ever done much of anything with her either, criminally!) And I'd rather do that in a place where I can hit pause and wander off whenever I like...
 
^ The only thing I was thinking is if you were a real casual viewer who made a note that there was a Harley Quinn movie coming out and then you make a spur of the moment decision to go see a movie it might not click that "Birds of Prey" (which is all my main theater shows as the name even online) is indeed that HQ movie and not something else.
 
It's mostly fine but nothing that stood out to me very much. I'd certainly rank it at the bottom of all of the DCEU movies.

It gives me no pleasure to say this, but I tend to agree. I don't think it was bad per se, and there were some good performances, but it failed to engage me in any significant way.
I'd also agree with these. I mean I don't know much about DC comics besides the big big names, so knew nothing about the Birds of Prey themselves. And having seen the movie I pretty much still feel the same way. Just mostly dull, uninteresting characters, and a complete waste of Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And sorry, I can't sympathise or even like some annoying pickpocketing thief. I was almost praying for Ewan McGregor to finish her off.

Wasn't terrible or even "bad", just very whatever.
 
I don't think the title would have made much difference, I just think that WB have vastly overestimated the popularity of Harley. She definitely is very popular, just not "go see a movie just because she is in it" popular.
 
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