Birds of Prey

Black Lightning was doing so good for a couple of episodes post-Crisis, with lots of action and Lady Eve coming back to life, but then Monday's episode killed all the momentum. Starting with Jefferson morosely drinking, listening to records, and reminiscing about Lynn to Gambi via phone, the episode was slow and over-serious, wasting so much time on conflicts at the ASA, as the loosely assembled team trained to go to Markovia, while Lynn conspired with Jace to steal Gravedigger's power for an hour, like she borrowed other powers to escape the ASA. Stretching out the pre-mission time, and having people criticize the team's ability, only calls attention to why Black Lightning doesn't call for help from the Superfriends who are in his same universe now. One call and he could get Freeland out of quarantine, let alone have assistance in Markovia. I would say only the last 20 or so minutes actually showed the rescue in Markovia, and it was such a slog to get there. So disappointed.

Meanwhile I went to see a different team up at the movies. I was initially cool on Birds of Prey because there's no Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) in it. There is a Cassandra Cain, but I'm not familiar with her comic history, and in the movie she's mostly used just to steal the MacGuffin diamond and be a damsel in need of rescue and safety. However, there is Renee Montoya, whom I loved in the animated series, so I took a risk. The movie was pretty funny and action-packed. It has some timeline issues about whether the scenes at the nightclub were last night (six hours ago) or a week ago, and Harley says the bank account numbers are in the "atomic structure" of the diamond, when they're probably just laser engraved on it like they engrave diamond serial numbers. Besides these minor nitpicks, it's fun and exciting entertainment with a cool antiheroine lead. The fight scene in the jail cells, with the sprinkler malfunction, could have been so bad with a male director and male gaze. It could have been all wet t-shirt ogling, but with a female director, the focus is on Harley's impressive moves through the water. Such a great scene, then later in the evidence room she does a cool maneuver with a baseball bat that bounces back to her. Great fight staging with funny moments.

Cassandra, as I said, is largely used as a plot device, but at one point she does get fed up and picks up a gun herself when scared by that henchman Szaz who threatens to gut her to get the diamond. Black Canary gets a lot of development and backstory about her mother who died. Huntress gets a backstory too but her current adult self doesn't have much character beyond being socially awkward and intense about her assassinations. Renee Montoya has some history with both the police captain and her ex-partner the lawyer. She understandably takes to drinking when she gets suspended, but jumps into the fray when Black Canary calls her with info on the diamond exchange. Renee also fights well for someone older, with no superpowers or assassin training. Meanwhile, Harley is still criminal and bad in the sense that that she casually murdered someone for a pet hyena, and tries to turn in Cassandra to the Black Mask, but she does partly redeem herself and becomes a temporary ally to the other women in the final battle for survival.

I only had a hard time watching the scene when Szaz sliced off people's faces and another scene when Sionis screamed at and humiliated a woman in his nightclub, just because he thought she was laughing at him. Total creep and egotistical bastard. Harley and Cass run off with the diamond, but apparently do send the bank numbers back to Huntress to fund her new Birds of Prey venture with the other women, so Harley's still slightly good again. I enjoyed seeing Renee quit the police instead of staying stuck in that shitty place (like Agent Carter staying at the S.S.R. when people stole her credit in season 1---boo!). Overall the film is a very colorful, quirky diversion. Some dark moments as I said, but not nearly as grimdark as previous DC films that are so self-important, apocalyptic, and washed out of color. Please make the upcoming Batgirl movie like this.