(no subject)

[camwyn]

My compliments to the fight choreographers for the Birds of Prey movie. It's hard enough to do that kind of arrangement for a standard martial arts flick; trying to set it up with a comic book aesthetic in mind and still make it possible for the camera to get in there has to be even harder.

I really enjoyed the movie overall, and very much liked how they handled Dinah and Helena. This version of Renee Montoya reminded me of a terrier, not just in terms of tenacity but in terms of 'I am smaller than you but I swear to Fnord I will rip your throat out if you look at my territory wrong'. And I know there's been grousing about what they did with Cassandra Cain, but to be honest, 'not particularly speech-prone killer little girl' kinda made it to the screen a few years back when Dafne Keen played X-23. I don't think they could've done the comic version of the character without it looking like a ripoff, and frankly, that background would've taken forever to go over. Foster kid pickpocket with next to no fear's fine with me.

And Margot Robbie gets my applause, of course. It's nice when you see an actor really enjoying a part she pushed so hard for.

It was a fun movie. I liked it better than Suicide Squad or several other comic book movies I've seen. I wouldn't say it was great, but it was fun. Just... just assume that every single individual who could be counted as part of the Bat-Family in any way, shape, or form was out of town dealing with a Justice League Unlimited omega-level threat, because if any of them were within fifty miles of Gotham, this wouldn't have happened. Also, Commissioner Gordon would've had to have been retired or in a coma or recovering from an organ transplant or something; when one of the early plot points of the movie is that Harley and the Joker broke up and then a giant chemical plant exploded on Gotham's East Side, if Gordon is even the slightest bit functional and on the job, the Bat-Signal's going up faster than you can say boo. But other than that I was pretty cool with it.

Comments

[ymfaery]

It's an R-rated movie, right? What's the level of visual violence like?

[camwyn]

Lots (lots)of comic book hand to hand violence with broken bone sounds galore. One or two scenes where the broken bone sounds were accompanied by things visibly bending the wrong way. Several gunfight scenes, a couple of stylized onscreen bullet wounds, nothing on par with the shotgun scene in The Fisher King.

There is also a scene where three people are being interrogated by Black Mask and Victor Szasz, and there is scalpel-based torture involved, but the camera cuts away before blood is drawn. Unfortunately it only cuts away to the person next to them so there's still distressing audio.

And there are two incidents of gender-based awfulness, one involving what I think was a roofied drink and one involving Black Mask demanding that a woman he thought was mocking him get up on a table and let her date rip her dress off, but in both cases outside intervention prevented the situation from degenerating too far.

[ymfaery]

Haven't seen Fisher King, so no clue about the shotgun scene, but the scene in Die Hard where Rickman's character blew away the CEO's(?) head in silhouette was Not Very Nice to me, if that's any indication.

My friend is interested in seeing this movie, but after watching (and cringing) though parts of Sense8, I'm more leery about watching anything above PG-13.

[camwyn]

Yeah, you're probably better off avoiding this one, then. The fight scenes alone would be a problem, never mind the other stuff.

[ymfaery]

*sigh*

My only problem with R-rated comic book based movies is that I most likely can't watch them comfortably. Already had to avoid both Deadpool movies and Suicide Squad.