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Awix (3310 KP) rated Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) in Movies

Feb 7, 2020 (Updated Feb 7, 2020)

Garish and frantic comic book movie basically does your head in for nearly two hours. Never mind doing a Batman movie without Batman, now they've done a Joker movie without the Joker: annoying homicidal pole-dancer Harley Quinn breaks up with he of the green hair and gets mixed up in a hunt for a diamond-shaped McGuffin involving various other obscure and mostly female Batman characters. Full of movement and some not bad action choreography, but the plot is a disjointed mess and it's hard to escape the impression that the producers are treating you like an idiot.

Robbie's performance is basically just irritating; not sure whether this is entirely intentional or not. Ewan McGregor is definitely just bad, but the script is to blame anyway: when the writers appear to believe it's cool and funny to break someone's legs on a whim, it's hard to take them seriously when they try to take the high ground on any moral issue, as they also do. Amoral, superficial, and sadistically violent in places; generally quite dim-witted and depressing. Undoes all the good work of recent movies in detoxifying the DC brand: come back Zach Snyder, all is forgiven.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated Bloodshot (2020) in Movies

Mar 16, 2020

Bloodshot (2020)

2020 | Action, Drama, Fantasy

6.4

(30 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Ding-dong action movie based on an obscure comic book is saddled with a silly name, plus it's a non-Fast & Furious Vin Diesel vehicle, but turns out to be reasonably watchable if you cut it some slack. US special forces soldier is murdered but resurrected by boffins; now he's super-strong, heals really fast, and his blood can connect to the internet. He sets out to get revenge on his killers, but discovers his memories may not be entirely trustworthy...

Whatever his other limitations as a performer, Diesel is fairly well-cast as a relentless human bulldozer of revenge, and the film does have (in theory) a decent plot twist, some interesting ideas (bordering on the existential), and reasonably well-mounted action sequences. With a bigger budget and a more inspired director this could have been an impressively thoughtful piece of SF action, but it feels clunky, not interested in exploring the things that make it distinctive, and there are lots of annoying missteps and short-cuts (a foot chase supposedly around London is clearly really taking place in suburban South Africa). Passes the time in a reasonably diverting way, though.

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Phil Maxwell (25 KP) rated Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) in Movies

Apr 5, 2020

Margot Robbie (0 more)

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Fantabulously Disappointing

Having seen trailers for this film quite a while ago I had high hopes for Birds Of Prey. Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that cram packs all the decent and semi decent action sequences into 3-4 minute trailers to try and entice people into watching. So sad.
While Suicide Squad had left me feeling rather lukewarm, there were enough good points in it so that I hadn't left the cinema feeling like I'd completely wasted my money. Birds Of Prey on the other hand... My God!
It seemed more akin to a comic book version of Thelma And Louise (with a couple more tag alongs thrown in to try and simulate the girl power vibe) than anything vaguely resembling how Harley had been portrayed in Suicide Squad- or in the graphic novels for that matter.
It truly is a shame as I think Margot Robbie is quite good an actress, but I think when she'd been handed this script by her agent she should have just chucked it in the bin without a second thought.