Temple of Geek Podcast: “Birds of Prey” Movie Review

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Welcome to the Temple of Geek Podcast. The Temple of Geek Podcast has been around since 2012 covering all things geek. In this episode, host Monica is joined by fellow fangirls Alyssa, Catherine and Alice to discuss “Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)”.

General Spoiler Warnings Apply

Birds of Prey is a twisted tale told by Harley Quinn. When the narcissistic villain, Roman puts a target on a young girl named Cass, the city is turned upside down looking for her. Harley, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya’s paths collide, and the unlikely foursome has no choice but to team up to take Roman down.

Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn, alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress; Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary; Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya; Chris Messina as Victor Zsasz; and Ewan McGregor as Roman Sionis. Ella Jay Basco also stars as Cassandra “Cass” Cain in her feature film debut. This film is directed by Cathy Yan and produced by Robbie. The script is by Christina Hodson and on characters from DC.

Birds of Prey is fun!

After reading many the very thoughtful and passionate twitter exchanges happening between our guests, we immediately invited them to discuss the film. Our main take away this episode is that overall BOP is a lot of fun. We discuss the things we felt made it feel fun and also some of the things that made this film worthy of an R-rating.

Audiences and critics seem to be in agreeance with our guests. Rotten Tomatoes certified the film as fresh. It has a critics rating of 82% and an audience score of 85%. Rotten Tomatoes was previously criticized for its audience score procedures, particularly around this time last year when Captain Marvel was debuting. Captain Marvel had not even been released yet — its opening day was a month away — but that did not stop negative remarks from piling up against the film and Ms. Larson. This does not seem to the case with Birds Of Prey. Audiences and critics seem to agree for the most part. This may be due to Rotten Tomatoes updated Audience Score procedures.

Cool Action Scenes & Adult Content

There has been a lot of buzz around the action scenes in this movie and the darker and more adult content of this film. It is being compared to the John Wick film franchise and The Deadpool film franchise. The John Wick comparison makes sense as John Wick Director, Chad Stahelski, oversaw the action scenes for Birds Of Prey. In this episode, we discuss just how much the action sequences and stunt performances had in common.  As far as the Deadpool comparisons it is most likely due to the fact that these films are similar in that they are R-rated, their characters break the 4th wall. We discuss these the level of these comparisons as well.

Diversity & Representation

Representation matters! In this episode, our guests discuss the impact that representation both on and off camera had on this film.

One of our favorite tweets about Birds of Prey comes from @teaberryblue and states “#BirdsOfPrey is the Drunk Girl in the Bathroom of superhero films.” If you don’t understand that reference, let me explain. Drunk women at bars and clubs are known for being overly friendly and kind to other women. And usually, these compliments and kindness is given to women who are complete strangers When they pass one another in a public restroom they commonly complement one another’s clothing, hair, and makeup. They will help strangers who are throwing up in the restroom stalls or assist women struggling to walk straight or get to their friends.

Women in film are so often portrayed as rivals, jealous of one another or competitive. Having a female writer and female director has certainly given BOP a more realistic look at the way women can form bonds very quickly.

About Our Guests:

On Twitter, Catherine cleverly describes herself as a geek of many things and angry at a whole lot more. And although she does talk about a lot of geek and fandom-related things that she loves on social media, she admits that she also often discusses things that piss her off. She’s also a fan of sharing cute animals! You can find her on Twitter as @cfnchng and on Instagram as @catherine.

 

 

Alyssa is the Art Director for the SYFY Series “Looking for Leia”. She is passionate about Geek fashion, Marvel, Star Wars and especially Loki. You can find her on twitter at @WhimsyDesigns and on Instagram as @miss.lys You can also check out her website Whimsy Design and Illustration.

 

Alice is a fangirl who is passionate about Marvel, Star Wars, DC and books in general. She is a contributor to The Sartorial Geek where she discusses Geek fashion and she will also be featured on Portrait of a Fangirl, a web series about fangirl culture. You can find her on Instagram as @akangaru and on Twitter as @kangaru.

About Our Host:

Monica is the current host of the Temple of Geek Podcast. She is a cosplayer. She also dabbles cosplay photography. She can usually be found around the Southern California pop culture and comic book convention scene. You can check out some of her work here: https://templeofgeek.com/author/monica/  

Podcast Edited by Danniel Slade (@dannielslade)