Birds of Prey — The Impostor Deadpool Jack Sparrow | Anatomy Of A Failure

you thought you were different I'm sorry kid I'm just a terrible person I guess [Music] burst of prey and the something-something Harlequin is the first DC movie of the new decade and consequently a chance for DC and warders to once and for all prove that they have finally fully lifted themselves up from the brown-colored swamp they've been consistently drowning in for years but since this is basically a spin-off of none other than Suicide Squad I'm sure you can guess the result that was super embarrassing sure what essentially birds of prey is an ensemble movie that chooses to leave out teeny-tiny narrative elements like plot in favor of focusing exclusively on its wide-ranging group of eccentric characters as well as this crazy wonky world of Harley Quinn's Gotham City that they inhabit even though you already know how I feel about not including a strong plot in movies based on 2019 stroker I am willing to go with it assuming that they actually pull off the characters and the world in a magnificent way and of course they don't at all and I gotta be honest it feels a bit weird to say that since the one thing this movie does handle exceptionally well is the way it chooses its main sources of inspiration which here are Captain Jack Sparrow and Deadpool and listen if you want to comment that all Luke Phil mentors just making cool titles again fair enough but that's not all at this because when I say birds of prey takes inspiration from Captain Jack and Deadpool I'm actually understating it because in reality this movie is basically a straight ripoff of them and it doesn't even try to hide it Harlen hold up hold up I'm telling this all wrong let's rewind but you would understand why I took a catnap on 1200 gallons of high test fuel I need to take you back with the walls closing in around me I need a carefully calculated highly strategic news are you dummies still sitting there fine seems you stuck it out this long I'll tell you a super-duper secret secret the personality of Harley Quinn is a straight copy-paste of Jack Sparrow where's this wonky world and the narrative used to showcase it is a straight copy-paste of Deadpool and there's nothing wrong with that you know itself if you're gonna copy something you might as well copy the proven greats what is wrong with it however is that this movie completely misses the point of what makes those two entities great which ultimately leads to the destruction of what only the character of Harley Quinn but also the other characters and the world around her aka the very things this movie was supposed to get right and if that wasn't already enough then there's also one other aspect in here that this problem would have actually helped but for whatever reason for that the movie just decides to toss it aside entirely to make sure it doesn't work either so yeah let's roller skate into this neon-colored gotham city of something-something Harley Quinn to see what exactly went wrong with it here's how not to Jack Sparrow and Deadpool based on her core personality and traits the best way to describe Harlequin in this movie is that she's basically a female Gotham City equivalent of Captain Jack Sparrow in that she stays very erratic seemingly insignificant fool who maneuvers through the obstacles of the world with ease despite appearing to be content which is living in her own head only problem is that when the filmmakers tried to copy Jack they completely missed the point of what makes him such a great entertaining character in other words they clearly only looked at him as he appears in Pirates v firstly the thing that makes Jack Sparrow a real proper movie hero that audiences can connect with and look up to is the fact that even though he comes off as an insignificant idiot dismissed by others that's not who he actually is it's just a way for him to get an edge over others which is very positively powerful because it essentially shows the audience that even though other people might look down on you and dismiss you as nothing that doesn't mean you are nothing you are without doubt the worst is disabled the rudder chain sir that's got to be the best part I've ever seen so it would seem but with Harlequin Imbert's of praise she actually is just an insignificant idiot when she's being an annoying dumb drunk at a club it's not because she's trying to present herself that way in order to gain access to some restricted area or something but just because she's an annoying dumb drunk when she does bad things to others which leads to them coming after her it's not because she planned for that to happen for some reason but just because she does dumb things when she blows up Joker's HQ it's not based on any hint of intelligence whatsoever but instead only on the fact that she's a dum-dum who does dumb crap when she's drunk and as we have very clearly seen that's not the basis for a great character audiences when I connect with or support and even if it was is that really the kind of hero you want your teenage or even younger female audiences to look up to secondly speaking of dumber remember how Jack Sparrow always uses his wits to maneuver himself through obstacles and out of sticky situations well that's not the case with Harley whatever obstacles she maneuvers through whatever sticky situation she gets out of it's always based on sheer random luck like she was the DC equivalent of mr. Magoo when she's about to be impaled by an arrow she sees a random pin on the ground and ducks to take it when she's about to be abducted by some douchebags another character randomly shows up just in time to save her even when we finally do get a hint of Harley using her own wits to survive a tough situation the movie smashes in in front of us like no fine in the thumb walk and it baffles me why DC and Warner's can't just let Harley be a genuinely witty trickster who overcomes obstacles with her own abilities because when the universe just seems to give her these get-out-of-jail-free cards it just ends up feeling random and thus on earned and speaking of random thirdly you know how Jack is a physical manifestation of motive who always has his own active goals that push the movie forward well that's not the case here because Harley is one of those dreaded inactive massive heroes for the first 40 minutes the only motivated goal she has had is to eat a sandwich how exhilarating and then ultimately it gets to the point where the movie is just like f it and decides to move things along by itself in the storytelling business this dummy swallowing that diamond is a complication what Harley calls a complication here is not actually a complication but instead a convenience because since Harley isn't pushing the movie forward with her actions the movie has to push her forward with these random events like when the girl randomly shows up at the right place just at the right time to steal this important MacGuffin diamond that the bad guy needs but even after that when the movie finally seems to make Harley active she still doesn't actually have any goals and motivations of her own because she's either just doing what others tell her to do or she's waiting for someone else to prove out the MacGuffin for her how exhilarating I mean the whole theme of this movie is to show that Harley can have a purpose by herself beyond just being given a purpose by men like the Joker but then when she actually is without the Joker she has no purpose whatsoever until another man steps in and gives her one what a great message what a great character all in all if you want a copy Captain Jack maybe don't pick the one movie that doesn't actually feature the real Captain Jack because this is what happens after the way the narrative of this movie is built with all the edgy fourth wall breaking voice-over and multiple non canonical timelines and overall ridiculous carefree tone that's when we entered Interpol territory which by itself probably is a great fit for a story like this there's just one teeny tiny problemo where stead pool is a Deadpool movie tall from the point of view of Deadpool birds of prey is a birds of prey movie talk from the point of view of Harley Quinn the issue of which comes in form of the fact that it kind of ruins every other protagonists character who isn't Harley Quinn to give this movie a bit of credit it clearly did try when it comes to building its main cast of characters the canary woman and the detective for example are constructed in an adequate way where they have enough things about them for us to understand what makes them tick and who they are as people but despite this we still never feel like we get close enough to them to actually be able to support and care about them because even though we are aware of the things that make them who they are we never actually see those things take place we just hear Harley say they took place 10 years ago she broke a career-making case came here he's been singing at Romans club for years remember the guy who stole her promotion that's him the cool sir he's the little bird the assistant DA that's her ex he's got her wrapped right around his fancy little finger when Deadpool tells us things through voiceover he tells them about himself as we see him experience them but it doesn't do is tell us things about other unknown characters in an effort to make us care about them but instead makes us care about them through the relationship he himself has with them and so when Harley is randomly telling us stuff about these other main characters without having any kind of relationship with them herself it just doesn't work and all these characters end up being is forgettable superficial sideshows and even when we actually do see enough about a character's own story to kinda get close to them it still gets ruined by the tone that comes with viewing this world from Harley Quinn's porno you like happens with huntress [Music] out of all the non Harley protagonists in this movie Huntress gets closest to functioning properly we see the tragic event that molded her into who she is we experienced it with her we actually feel for her and want to support her but then out of nowhere because this is a narrative told through the eyes of Harley Quinn the movie suddenly takes this tragic backstory and turns it into a Harley like carefree joke with this bowing out is that a bow and arrow it's a crossbow I'm not 12 you know so we have this really tragic backstory of this girl losing her entire family as a kid and then ultimately all this world we exist in makes it amount to is oh your whole family was murdered I bet you have anger issues and because this tragic backstory event is so different from the carefree ridiculous world of Harley Quinn to the point of being incompatible it just ends up losing all of its emotional Ponzi which is why even Mary Elizabeth Winstead who is a great actor just cannot make Huntress work it's not a bow and arrow it's a crossbow and the Oscar goes to if you want to make a Deadpool like Harlequin movie about Harlequin then make a Deadpool like Harlequin movie about Harlequin but if you want to make a date to like Harlequin movie about this birds of prey crime-fighting group that Harlequin ultimately isn't even a member of I would stop to reconsider as much as what we've talked about causes problems all around the narrative and the protagonist characters there is one aspect about this movie where it all works incredibly great and that is our main villain Roman Zionists sionis by far is the strongest part of this film because none of the problems we've talked about applied to him you know how we never got into the cast of main characters because we only hear Harley describe the things that make them who they are well that doesn't happen with sionis because not only do we witness him experience events and make choices that clearly define who he is we also get to know him through the relationship Harley has with him Plus unlike the other characters he actually fits the tone of a Harley Quinn movie like a glove he's a ridiculous carefree sadist who also seems to have a more three-dimensional deeper side to him which is built up to with his overly insecure aggression as well as his strangely intimate relationship with his right-hand man zas [Music] why don't I own the crossbow you should know I mean I like crossbows why I'm gonna get you Diana back on top of all this in the third act Harley Quinn actually finally gets her own clear motivated goal when she has to race after sionis to defeat him and at this point it's like oh wow this movie might actually end up being pretty good until for an hour-and-a-half a core issue with this film has been that it tries to force a Harlequin movie out of a non Harlequin movie and now at long last when at the end it finally can be a full-on Harlequin movie the filmmakers then suddenly decide that hmm maybe they shouldn't be a Harlequin movie instead of Harley having a wonky end goal corresponding to her wonky personality here she just wants to save this girl that nobody in the audience cares about which is fine but way too much of a common cliche to be all there is to it instead of paying off the personality buildup down with Zionists here the ultimate reveal is that yeah the reason he wants the MacGuffin diamond is just to become rich and powerful which not only is like every big glass gangster movie ever it also makes absolutely no sense he's already been established to be the most dangerous guy in Gotham the only person he fears is the Joker who isn't even part of this movie and so why would he need to become rich and powerful when that already is exactly what he is if he gets the diamond you have all the money and connections to the most wealthiest families in Gotham to bribe every single judge and cop he needs Gotham's newest Godfather we get a monopoly on the city and I'm telling you it's so weird because I swear they were building up for a climax that is something entirely else and what do you know asking my body google turns out something entirely else is exactly what it was supposed to be in the original script the MacGuffin diamond didn't contain codes threw a bunch of money but instead to a collection of nude photos of sionis that proved that he prefers sausage over pie and it makes total sense it explains why he's so weirdly intimate with sass it explains why he's so insecure ly aggressive it explains why he's causing all this mayhem and havoc for one diamond because underneath that scary danger shell all he actually is is an insecure little man who's afraid people will see him for who he truly is and that's freaking fantastic not only does it make this character three-dimensional it also perfectly fits in this neon-colored wonky Deadpool like Harley Quinn version of Gotham think about it in the third act Harlequin has to defeat black mask by getting her hands on a bunch of nude photos that expose him for liking guys and obviously the point wouldn't be to convey there's something wrong with that but just to use it as an insecure flaw in the villain who refuses to grow over it that's exactly the type of movie we've been trying to build up that's exactly a Harlequin movie if I've ever heard of one but instead what we ultimately do get is Harlequin has to go save this girl from this rich powerful gangster who wants to become even more rich and powerful and that's it that's it you know at least suicide squad had the decency of being bad from start to finish to make it clear there exists no good version of it that we missed out on but here it's like not only do they give you a movie that doesn't work they also flip you off with the potential of what it could have been so sounds like good old DC [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Filmento

Views: 2,018,427

Keywords: harley quinn, birds of prey, harley quinn birds of prey, deadpool, jack sparrow, pirates of the caribbean, video essay, margot robbie, marvel, mcu, dc, dceu, upcoming dceu movies, pirates of the caribbean 6, deadpool 3, ryan reynolds, birds of prey clip 4k, suicide squad, one dc-sastrous scene, anatomy of a failure, davy jones, birds of prey - it's a garbage movie, birds of prey rant, birds of prey flop, black mask, dceu movies, dead men tell no tales, dead man's chest, joker

Id: IvTYpvyOeEg

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 28 2020