Harley Quinn is the exception that proves the rule. It is a good series. It’s just incredibly dark for what I expected from DC animation. I’m used to Wonder Woman buying a little girl an ice cream cone or Green Lantern going down like Wile E. Coyote. I’m not used to shocking closeups of shattered shins and melting faces in every fight scene.
Love him or hate him, Ari Aster has quickly made a name for himself in horror. In two short years, he released two of most talked about films in recent years. He broke the rules of horror to create a conversation about what defines terror in cinema.
Felix lives in a world where superpowers are common. He has powers, too, but they’re pretty terrible. He can pull up a DnD character sheet for anything he owns and upgrade traits with a limited supply of points. Where he lives (Skipper City), superheroes are illegal and supervillains run everything. Slavery is also legal. While trying to buy a supply of lead bricks to turn into gold, Felix accidentally buys an auction of three nearly-dead superheroes. Suddenly, his point totals are exponentially higher than ever before, high enough to bring the heroes back from the brink of death. Felix has a new business idea now: buying superheroes at auction to work in a pawn shop, where he can purchase junk and upgrade it to incredibly valuable antiques.
Did I ever expect to be comparing a big budget Disney remake with an accidentally absurdist Tom and Jerry film? No. But here we are.
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn refuses all of the superhero genre standards standards. This is a cartoonish crime drama where a grand total of one character has anything resembling a superpower. Everyone else is just really lucky or trained in a specific weapon. The violence is merciless compared to the broad comedy and is tonally unexpected in a DC film.
