Birds of Prey Blu-Ray Review

May 18, 2020 at 9:43pm
By Jason Stettner

The Birds of Prey, And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is a rather interesting standalone within whatever is going on for the DC cinematic universe. This film follows the title character Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) as she goes out on her own. She’s done with Joker, and is dealing with various threats across the city. Her main problem is the intensely dangerous Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) who works with a very creepy Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina).

It’s an interesting look at the particular character of Harley, while at the same time building out the roster with many new ladies. This is obviously the Birds of Prey aspect, and it’s a generally enjoyable time. It brings some intense action, many comedic bits and works well as being an actual standalone experience. The bigger universe is there, but it’s not really shown at all in the foreground and that works out well for this one.

I really liked the more intimate focus on certain characters, and these clashing forces were great to dive into. You have a seriously messed up Roman up against a clearly broken Harley. It features high levels of violence, and ever really holds back at any moment. It embraces that graphic level of content you might expect in this sort of violent situation, and it’s better for it.

Birds of Prey Special Features

The Birds of Prey Blu-Ray comes with a number of special features. These are available to view on the traditional Blu-Ray disc as one package. They include the following selections that can be viewed as a bundle or individually. "Gag Reel”, “How the Birds came to life”, “Diving Into all things fashion”, “Meet Bruce the Hyena” and many more.

There are a good numbers of extras available here, and I liked the interview style they provided. I would have liked more technical showcases for this one, but I did like seeing the full picture behind the structuring for what happened. It was also neat to see the dive into the roller derby scene, and various deeper looks at the key characters that were present in this one.

The Conclusion

The Birds of Prey Blu-Ray package is a generally great and well rounded collection of content based around the lead of Harley Quinn. You get some background context into the creation of the movie through various interviews and behind the scenes shots. It would have been better to get some more technical showcases however, as those weren’t really present within the extras. The movie is funny, focuses on the characters and leaves the stuffing of a larger universe behind.

It’s got a great cast, with many unique moments and lots of action the whole way through. If you enjoyed the character previously, this outing is a good expansion upon just who she is. It also sets up some extra individuals within the universe, but it’s still unknown if those will get anything standalone down the road.

Birds of Prey Blu-Ray Review
Provided by Warner Brothers

Rating Overall: 8.6