Of
course it’s true that the expectations you bring to a film influence your opinion.
For example, because I had had a bad day at work I thought a cinema trip the tonic
and went to see ‘John Wick: chapter 3 – parabellum’ as that seemed the best
brain-dead option on offer; I mean I wasn’t a fan, but Keanu is fun and the
first two had been stupid enough. I was just curious, as I tend to be about
mainstream stuff that isn’t quite my thing. But then I found myself thoroughly
enthralled by the fight choreography of the first third, so I happily endorsed it
on that level. I probably wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t had a bad day and
wasn’t expecting much but was pleasantly surprised. I am a sucker for a well-choreographed
and edited fight scene.
On
the other hand, having seen ‘Parasite’ on a lot of Years Best 2019
lists, I was anxious to see it, and I did and thought it great and – as with ‘Moonlight’
– I was glad to have seen it before the Oscar Best Film Ever publicity. My
friend saw it afterwards and, of course he thought it good and wasn’t disappointed,
but what can match such a reputation when it pumps-up your anticipation to
unreasonable heights? You have to adjust and a second watch is usually better. You
have to watch out for that.
Or
there was ‘Superman vs Batman’ which I went into with the lowest expectations,
and they certainly weren’t exceeded in any way, but I found myself shrugging “Meh,
I’ve seen worse.” But now, upon reflection, it’s stagnated and probably sunk a
little. Maybe I was the same with ‘Suicide Squad’? Oh, a huge allowances
must be made for Jessie Eisenberg’s Lex Luther.
On
the other hand, I went recently into ‘The Lighthouse’ and ‘Uncut Gems’
expecting much and was given that and more: they didn’t disappoint. But when
expressing my anticipation, my friend said that he doesn’t go into a film with
that, preferring a blank slate. But I am an excitable person, so I’m okay with
being eager to see a film. Others have to make allowances for Adam Sandler. I’m
no fan but he’s exemplary in ‘Uncut Gems’.
And
so, I went into ‘Birds of Prey: and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley
Quinn’ with average expectations. I had been indifferent until I heard some
positive comments, and then I saw it was Margot Robbie so I went to see. I
expected it to be better than my low anticipations and it was. I went in
thinking I would need to make several allowances. When watching a film, I expect there to be a
moment of allowance, where I like much else and excuse a sudden something what
perhaps irks me; where I go It’s A Film So
Just Accept That And Enjoy. For example, I had to make big allowances for
both Peele’s ‘Get Out’ and ‘Us’ when both films stopped dead for
clunky exposition. I have a friend who dislikes ‘Us’ because I believe he
thinks it’s badly executed, whereas I don’t mind the slightly unwieldly pile-on
of ideas. One that really tested me was Raaphorst’s ‘Frankenstein’s Army’,
because I hated 98% of the found-footage camerawork but loved the monster
designs. I didn’t feel Waititi’s ‘Jojo Rabbit’ lapsed into objectionable
sentimentality, feeling that was an extension of the tone already set, but a
friend did. Tarantino’s latter films create many conflicting opinions, mostly
because I distrust blatant rewriting of history in a way that feels a little
too close to the mentality of Fake News and Alternative Facts: but there’s a
lot of good stuff there too, and it’s true that films are nothing if not
fantasies.
Which
leads me too: the films that I really take against are those that I feel insult
my intelligence or expound agenda’s I find objectionable: the ‘Insidious’
or ‘The Conjuring’ franchises come to mind, and certainly lately Spielberg’s
‘Ready Player One’. I would have allowed the stupidity of the opening
airplane assault in Gutierrez’s ‘Rings’ if the rest hadn’t had me
thinking “This is really badly written.” I must allow for the unintentionally
hilarious and grating pseudo-poeticism of Malick’s ‘Tree of Life’. I
allow for the occasional school-play level of acting in McCarthy’s ‘The Girl
with All the Gifts’ to enjoy its interesting ideas. Tarkovsky’s ‘The
Silence’ has that Hysterical Woman syndrome that I dislike. Bloomkamp’s ‘District
9’ sets up so much interesting stuff that allowances must be made when it
all just leads to a basic punch-up. Moodyson’s ‘Lilya 4-Ever’ and Considine’s
‘Tyrannosaur’ perhaps veer too much into misery porn. And of course, Spielberg’s
‘ET’ is drowned in mush. Or there’s the hundreds of films where you must
make allowances for the monster designs or special effects.
Often
my objections come from a sense that internal logic is maligned, and the film is
condescendingly playing the it’s-just-a-movie get-out-of-jail-free card.
I felt that at first with Bong Joon Ho’s ‘The Host’: I mean, nah, she
wouldn’t have been able to climb out of that hole. I think I would be accepting
on another watch: I mean, there’s much greatness there (not least I remember it
being the first time that a CGI monster was rendered moving with convincing weight).
Or Jenning’s loveable ‘Son of Rambow’: lapse into sentimentality and a
bit too much over-egged happy ending that forgoes credibility (of course, Your
Mileage May Vary).
One
of the worst examples for me was when I first saw ‘Robocop’, I wasn’t
convinced at all that they would get something the weight of the ED-209 onto a
floor that high in an office block: did they build it up there? Did they have
an industrial elevator? Okay, so assuming that is too picky: why programme
a robot killing machine to try to go down by stairs by dipping its foot? Wouldn’t
it just be programmed to ignore stairs? I probably still think that’s a daft
scene, but I was wrong about the film as a whole, which is ripe and full of
satirical goodness. I put it down to the fact that I didn’t understand at the
time Paul Verhoeven’s punkish sense of exploitation cinema. Along the same line
of thinking, there’s ‘Star Wars’: why would a boy build and programme a
camp robot that complains all the time?
With
Fargeat’s ‘Revenge’, there was no getting past the fact that she wouldn’t
have survived that fall: usually that means I change to “from then on, it’s a
fantasy”, and you go with that, but there’s nothing subsequent in the film that
lays evidence for this.* So then I just went with the same kind of shrugging enjoyment
that I approach, say, the aforementioned ‘John Wick’. But in Kitamura’s ‘No
One Lives’, a similarly impossible thing happens and realism be damned: it’s
outrageous and darkly funny and plausibility be damned. It’s about tone and the
intent implied by the film to that point that determines if you can get away
with it. ‘Revenge’ implied a certain seriousness; ‘No One Lives’
didn’t. And you aren’t worrying about credibility with Gordon’s ‘Re-Animator’.
And nobody will take issue with, say, Odet and Lehman’s arch but impossibly perfectly
formed dialogue of Makendrick’s ‘The Sweet Smell of Success’.
Or
‘City of God’… nope. Or lately: ‘Monos’… ‘Burning’… nope. Or
‘The Haunting’… nope. Or ‘Come and See’… ‘Eraserhead’… ‘Let the Right One In’… Zyagintsev’s
‘The Return’… Tarkovsky’s ‘Mirror’… nope. These are films that I am incapable of
finding flaw and don’t care to.
So…
Birds
of Prey: and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
Cathy
Yan, 2020, USA
Screenplay:
Christina Hodson
‘Birds of Prey: and the Fantabulous Emancipation
of One Harley Quinn’ starts very comic-booky with
voiceover and quick-cut exposition. Actually, it’s a pace that’s kept up with Harley
Quinn barging in periodically as a centrepiece as the scaffolding for these other
women is going up and coming together. We’re at the place now where comic book
films don’t need a lot a lead-in: other films in the “universe” are prologue. Apparently
Margot Robbie rightly pitched it as a girl-gang film. There is much framing
like a comic book, a broad sense of fun, silliness, a little meta here and
there, several decent lines, Robbie giving it her all – and she’s good, giving a
plausible real-life rendition of the ‘Batman: the animated series’
character, created by Paul Dini and Arleen Sorkin’s great voice work and now canon.
And I watched for that moment that I felt it failed itself, that moment that
called for a huge allowance, where a lapse in internal logic took me out of the
immersion.
But,
you know, that moment didn’t really come. Although it was visibly trying very
hard, it seemed to me no more than many other films obviously showing off and
calling for attention. It didn’t feel it was rushing because it was scared of slowing
down and showing there was very little holding it aloft. Okay, so there was
that moment where I thought “Why is he hanging out on the street with a diamond
in his possession, just waiting to be pick-pocketed?” But this was a moment of mild
allowance and didn’t sabotage the film.
Rather,
I was concentrating on the good things. So it has a mediocre villain in Ewan McGregor,
it’s often crude, maybe acts up more clever than it actually is, but… The good:
decent timing; not dwelling on any trope too long in a bid for emotional weight;
decent fights; a few good one-liners; and I thought the car-chase-on-roller-skates
a glorious action set-piece. Actually, the whole final-fight in the fairground felt wonderfully comic-booky and inventive.
Of
course, the other thing is that it’s predominantly a woman’s film: directed by
Cathy Chan and written by Christina Hodson, with Hodson and Robbie part of the
production team. I saw a tweet by someone noting that only a woman would have written
the moment in a fight scene where one gives another a hair band so that her
long hair doesn’t impede her kicking ass (indeed, she sees to her hair as she’s
kicking ass). Although ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Captain Marvel’ got
the most fanfare, ‘Birds of Prey’ seemed to me less problematic and trying,
more casual and convincing in its girl gang power agenda. In superheroland, equality
usually means women kicking as much ass as the men, and it doesn’t disappoint here.
It won’t work for everyone and it won’t convert naysayers, but it’s fun and
punky and entertaining enough.
So,
in the style of ‘Little White Lies’ magazine: my expectation was that it
was going to be average; the reality was that I enjoyed it and found it to be
above average; and in retrospect it’s nothing special but it’s a good, enjoyable
and fun film with some noteworthy detail.
·
* Whereas that seems a logical
continuation of the tone and themes of ‘Drive’ and ‘The Dark Knight
Rises’.
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