Birds of Prey
A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman Hollywood doesn’t understand women. I think for some odd reason they see women not as people but as concepts. You can just be the (insert stereotype here) but be anymore complex than that the door is there and you are not welcome in this party. That change is supposed to becoming but it really hasn’t. As I have vexed at length Romantic Comedies are still rare and female movie stars are going the way of the dinosaur. So when Birds of Prey was announced I expected trash. I expected a film that made Margot Robbie more of a prop while she acted circles around the men in her cast. I was wrong.
Birds of Prey is the best film about the predatory nature of men, the struggle for “strange” women to survive in the modern world, and about understanding each other. Not one male character in this film is a good person. No one female character is a saint either. Everyone is awful but the Birds and their issues are real. Black Canary is a wage slave angry at the life she has to leave. Huntress is a socially inept killing machine who longs for friendship but cannot communicate with others. Renee Montoya is a working woman who has been walked over and abused by a power structure that ignores her and Harley is a victim of abuse finally trying to become independent. Those aren’t characters who make up a superhero film. This all works because those real issues feel like they require superpowers to survive.
Birds of Prey is also blessed with the best set design, color use and use of a city I have seen since the Dark Knight. LA is an awful city when you see its Downtown. It is big ugly and abandoned. It is perfect for Gotham. The colors remind me of the work of Jamie Hewlett, just big and colorful and strange but also razor sharp. Birds of Prey knows its audience. It isn’t trying to make a comic accurate film. The comics don’t matter it is taking problems real women face and giving them a fantastical face to put their struggles to as hope to say “ You will survive this!
Rating: 5/5
A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman Hollywood doesn’t understand women. I think for some odd reason they see women not as people but as concepts. You can just be the (insert stereotype here) but be anymore complex than that the door is there and you are not welcome in this party. That change is supposed to becoming but it really hasn’t. As I have vexed at length Romantic Comedies are still rare and female movie stars are going the way of the dinosaur. So when Birds of Prey was announced I expected trash. I expected a film that made Margot Robbie more of a prop while she acted circles around the men in her cast. I was wrong.
Birds of Prey is the best film about the predatory nature of men, the struggle for “strange” women to survive in the modern world, and about understanding each other. Not one male character in this film is a good person. No one female character is a saint either. Everyone is awful but the Birds and their issues are real. Black Canary is a wage slave angry at the life she has to leave. Huntress is a socially inept killing machine who longs for friendship but cannot communicate with others. Renee Montoya is a working woman who has been walked over and abused by a power structure that ignores her and Harley is a victim of abuse finally trying to become independent. Those aren’t characters who make up a superhero film. This all works because those real issues feel like they require superpowers to survive.
Birds of Prey is also blessed with the best set design, color use and use of a city I have seen since the Dark Knight. LA is an awful city when you see its Downtown. It is big ugly and abandoned. It is perfect for Gotham. The colors remind me of the work of Jamie Hewlett, just big and colorful and strange but also razor sharp. Birds of Prey knows its audience. It isn’t trying to make a comic accurate film. The comics don’t matter it is taking problems real women face and giving them a fantastical face to put their struggles to as hope to say “ You will survive this!
Rating: 5/5
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