Directed by: Cathy Yan
Notable cast: Margot Robbie, Ewan McGregor, Rosie Perez,
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell
Adaptation is a funny game. You have to make a story or
property viable for a different audience or medium while trying to balance fealty
to the originals and the fans thereof. And if you even kind of manage that
small miracle you usually still have to worry about making something
entertaining as a stand-alone piece. Birds of Prey is already juggling
all of these balls and decides to double down by swapping in the flaming
chainsaws of being aggressively feminist in a space that’s so far been
unwelcoming to it, and by being a sequel to a movie nobody seemed to like. That
the movie came together at all is no small feat, that it did it this well is
more or less unprecedented. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, allow me to
channel our subject’s protagonist and backpedal a bit to do this right.