Gotham City. After Joker broke up with her, Harley Quinn finds a new assignment: a little girl, Cassandra, stole and ate a diamond intended for crime boss Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask, so he orders Harley to get it back. Harley finds Cassandra, but actually becomes her friend. In the meantime, Detective Renee Montoya, singer Dinah Lance and Helena Bertinelli, aka The Huntress, also have a bone to pick with Sionis, so they reluctantly team up with Harley. Sionis orders his men to get the diamond any way they can, even threatening to cut out Cassandra's stomach, but luckily Harley is able to stop them and kill Sionis. Later, after Cassandra defecates the diamond, Harley escapes with her from Montoya, Dinah and Bertinelli.
The 2nd film in which Margot Robbie played Harley Quinn, "Birds of Prey" is weaker than "The Suicide Squad", but better than "Suicide Squad". It is a patchwork, using a convoluted narrative obfuscation of a rather simple story in which Harley has to save a girl who ate a diamond from criminal Sionis, which makes it slightly forced at times, but it still has enough virtues to offer a good fun, especially in some meticulously choreographed martial arts and fight sequences, where the creative work of the stuntmen rises to the occasion. The story is at times almost banal (the villain Sionis is presented almost exclusively as a one-dimensional bad guy, with one nasty sequence where he orders his henchmen to torture and execute three people hanging upside down; the hyena plays no role in the story, indicating the screenplay needed at least one more re-write), but the director Cathy Yan is still able to be playful on the field of directing, enriching the film. For instance, in one sequence, as Harley is running away from Detective Montoya through a market, she randomly spots other people who create obstacles for her, as the camera zooms in on their faces and shows their name and grievance ("Name: Roller Dummy. Grievance: Broke her nose."; "Name: Ralph Murray. Grievance: Fed his brother to a hyena"). In another comical sequence, Harley, in disguise, enters a police precinct and says: "I'd like to report a terrible crime". The police officer asks: "What crime?", and she replies with: "This one!", as she reveals a gun that fires some sort of a red ball at the officer, knocking him out. The best moment happens at a brilliantly choreographed fighting sequence at a warehouse, where a big henchman with a long beard is holding Harley by her neck, but she takes a lighter and lights his beard on fire, causing him to recoil in panic: genius. These kind of stylizations and anarchic humor fit very well with Harley's crazy persona, helping sway this film towards something better than it was fated initially.
Grade:++
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