Over the past few years DC Comics has seemed intent on turning Harley Quinn into their very own Deadpool, complete with fourth wall breaking antics and everything. While this has led to some amusing results and is responsible for much of the character's ever-growing popularity, she has yet to match her obvious inspiration in terms of cleverness and originality. Nowhere has that been more evident than in this movie. While I'm happy to see to see another studio follow in Fox's footsteps by making a R-rated superhero flick in this post-MCU market, the more mature and graphic content this allows for never feels as good a fit for Joker's ex as it did for Wolverine and the merc with a mouth. So all the F-bombs, gore, and raunchy humor end up coming off as sad attempts to be edgy more often than not. One of the more divisive aspects of 2016's Suicide Squad was it's Hot Topic visual aesthetic. It returns here and might actually be worse this time around. I really hope Warner Bros. ditches it going forward because I'm tired of the way it makes classic characters like Black Canary look ratchet. As much as I loved Jurnee Smollett-Bell in the role and want to see her return to it in a Green Arrow movie or something, her wardrobe was a consistent problem for me. With a few exceptions, the heroes and villains that have been unfortunate enough to find themselves in this corner of the DCEU have been subject to bad designs. Birds of Prey also lags behind other superhero films in the action department. It's hard to take Quinn herself seriously when her foes are clearly just standing there and letting her beat the crap out of them. Even when there are people onscreen who can believably carry a fight scene the choreography is usually sloppy. I wasn't expecting John Wick or anything, but this is well below the standards set by its peers. The story was the saving grace for me. There's no potential world ending threat here. It's just another messed up night in Gotham. Not only does this allow the adventure to stand out from the pack, but it also harkens back to the kind of material that got me into superheroes in the first place. Plus, it has the most memorable villains of any comic book adaptation to date in Black Mask and Victor Zsasz who actually benefit from all the gaudy flair. The script is a touch bloated (why is Huntress is even in this?), it makes no sense for Harley to have not been given top billing in the title, and much like David Ayer's critical misfire it all begs the question of where are the good guys? Specifically, where's Batman? This all going down in his city at night so it's hard to not wonder why he or some other member of the Bat-family didn't get involved at some point. For all of it's flaws though I loved the smaller, more intimate approach that was taken here. I think all of this just goes to show that if you're going to make a follow up to one of the entries in your cinematic universe, you might not want to pick the one that's arguably the worst of the bunch. You can take the most popular character from it and put them front and center, but if your still using so many of the same elements the results aren't going to be that much different. Then you have to add Harley Quinn's identity issues on top of that, as taking her content in a more hyperactive and harsher direction has betrayed so much of what made her interesting in the first place, as well as caused her to become more annoying than endearing. Something that, to the film's credit, is acknowledged multiple times by most of the people she comes in contact with. Overall, this isn't terrible, but it is a disappointing step back for the DCEU right as it had begun to redeem itself with its last few outings.