woo, free time!

[eleanorjane]

On the one hand, insomnia sucks. On the other hand, tonight's bout of it provided the perfect opportunity to watch the new Birds of Prey movie, which is entirely misnamed since it's 95% Harley's movie, and characters like Cass (and Dinah?) owe basically nothing to their comics namesakes.

It was a frenetic, chaotic shitshow of a movie, and thoroughly enjoyable. The structuring (flashback-heavy) was actively confusing; I'm not sure whether it was written that way or whether it was restructured in post-shoot editing, but it made the middle third of the movie (what should have been Act 2, I guess) nigh-incomprehensible. Or maybe it was watching it at 3am that did that. But, still, it was splashy dumb fun with a few great character beats for Harley. (Then again, I actually didn't hate Suicide Squad, and I thought the extended cut in particular made it a substantially better movie.)

I mean, god only knows what DC is doing with their movie continuity these days, and I think BOP suffers for that because as an ensemble movie would have been much stronger in a strongly-drawn and comprehensible setting. But that's not gonna happen with DC any time soon, so... it is what it is, I guess.

Still, given the givens, it was fun and I'm glad I watched it.

(Edit: Also, Ewan McGregor was fucking great.)

I had to watch a bunch of it on tenterhooks because although it mostly wasn't gory, there was a looming threat of violence in so many scenes (mostly anything with Sionis or Zsasz in it, both of whom were like unstable explosives) so I did watch bits of it with headphones off and peeking through my fingers. I've seen it compared to John Wick, and I don't actually feel that worked for me - the majority of the action was way more comic-book-y and cartoony than John Wick, while the notable minority was (IMO) way more gruesome. (I have a serious squick, verging on trigger, about particular kinds of mutilation, so one earlyish scene with Sionis, Zsasz and their victims was horrifying for me, and John Wick never gets near pushing any of those buttons.)

Comments

[merit]

I don't think DC knows what they are doing with their movie continuity these days either. It could be a good thing - individual versions of the superheroes but most of the films have a very... grimy overlay. BoP seems much more colourful though! even if I *sniff* will try to learn to love the new Cass and Dinah.

[eleanorjane]

Yeah, I'm totally down for treating the superheroes individually and not trying to make a shared continuity, and I think in many cases the stories work better that way.* It's just DC doesn't seem to be able to commit to that, either!

I enjoyed BOP a lot. I hesitate to call it good, since I found the structural issues so intrusive, but I am quite happy to call it fun. Which is what I want from a movie anyway. :)

* Expansion re individual supers stories being better than shared continuity: I love a good shared universe very very much. But:

a) it's hard to execute well -- even Marvel, who demonstrated real discipline in keeping the MCU coherent and telling a core story across nearly a score of movies (!), of overall high quality to boot, ran into problems in that the characterisation of many of the heroes in the ensemble pieces is completely counter to their characterisation in their individual movies. (Cap, Iron Man and Thor suffer most egregiously from this IMO.)

b) the concepts of some supers really suffer when you place them in a wider context. E.g. Batman as the solo hero is a gritty noir hero in a broken world and it's a great, atmospheric story. Batman in a world where Superman and Wonder Woman are right next door, and the Justice League is a thing, starts to look like an obsessive narcissist who's actively obstructing the saving of Gotham so that he gets to dick around in a bat costume instead.

[merit]

DC movies often had the same aesthetic. WW was different to a degree but must so many shots be gritty grey?? Batman's movies could be interesting neo-noir (though Affleck was miscast from day one, and I refuse to stand down from that). I can sort of shrug my shoulders at b) if the stories were interesting enough for each hero.

I think fun~ can be a good experience even if it isn't a technically a good movie.