Birds of Prey Review

The single best decision was hiring Chad Stahelski's people for the set pieces. The evidence room fight, with Harley firing beanbag rounds and glitter grenades through clouds of coloured smoke, and the funhouse finale on a rotting pier are the only action in the whole DC run where you can see the choreography and feel the impacts. Ewan McGregor's Roman Sionis is genuinely disturbing precisely because he plays the misogyny as petulance rather than menace, a rich boy who makes a woman climb on a table because his feelings are hurt.

Margot Robbie is superb again, and Rosie Perez brings a worn out decency the ensemble needs. The structure works against all of it. Harley narrates in a scattered, doubling back way that is meant to reflect her mind and mostly delays the plot, so it takes an hour to gather a team the title has already promised. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jurnee Smollett are both very good and both underserved, arriving with backstories the film summarises rather than dramatises. Fun, loose, and a little thin.