Screen – C-VILLE Weekly

Flight of fancy: DC Extended Universe ascends with Birds of Prey

There’s a funny kind of freedom that’s recently emerged in the DC Extended Universe. After a series of colossal failures, each one worse than the last, the powers that be decided not to cancel the whole project, but to bring in fresh blood with new ideas, then empowered them to do whatever the hell they want. It’s an exciting change of pace to have no idea what might happen next in a big-budget superhero movie. Marvel may be much steadier in the quality of its output, but its best and worst movies mostly follow the same formula. DC is now living up to the legacy of The Dark Knight’s Joker: anarchic, unpredictable, and totally engrossing.

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) marks the latest and most definitive break with the grim, dreary, glossy yet visually exhausting world of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Justice League, and Suicide Squad. Perhaps we owe those disasters some gratitude. If they were better, Warner Bros. might not have blown up the formula as dramatically as it did. Instead, DCEU is doing everything it can to make audiences forget any of that ever happened. The franchise is, like Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey, emancipated from the figures that once defined its style, and free to blaze a new trail.

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

R, 104 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Birds of Prey takes place after the events of Suicide Squad. Between the two movies, Harley (Margot Robbie) and Joker have broken up, and she’s lost the protection that came with him. Once word gets out, everyone she’s ever robbed, beaten, or cheated is out to get her, chief among them Roman Sionis, otherwise known as the Black Mask (Ewan McGregor), and his henchman Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina). To stay alive in her newfound freedom, she needs to team up with three other women who might have been adversaries had they not each been wronged by powerful people: Dinah/Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), and Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Together, they have to save the life of teenage pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco) before Sionis gets to her.

Robbie showed us she was born to play this part in Suicide Squad, and now she has a movie that lives up to her performance. Birds of Prey is a fun, colorful, exciting adventure with engaging characters, outrageous villains, terrific design, and riveting action sequences. Director Cathy Yan nails the tone, keeping things silly while always raising the dramatic stakes. Writer Christina Hodson reinvigorates the flagging film universe just as she did with Bumblebee. Every performer shines, every character is perfectly realized, and the theme of emerging from another person’s shadow elevates this from just another comic flick to a statement on the vitality and relatability of Harley Quinn’s character.

The taboo of R-rated comic book movies has been broken, between Watchmen, Logan, Deadpool, and Joker. Birds of Prey earns its R rating with violence and language, but it stands apart in one interesting respect. Those other films were either standalone or adjacent to their film universes. Logan was the end of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and Deadpool has yet to be fully integrated into the larger Marvel/X-Men films (whatever form they take after Disney’s acquisition of Fox). Birds of Prey, meanwhile, is a direct sequel, and it shows just how cowardly the sanitized, PG-13 violence of the DCEU was. All of the combat was devoid of blood, crunch, and, most of all, consequences. Without consequences, the violence became hollow, meaningless, and routine. Unlike the supposed tough guys of those movies, Harley knows what she’s doing and is not afraid to get her hands dirty.

Local theater listings

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 375 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

See it again

Casablanca

PG, 102 minutes

February 14, The Paramount Theater

Less thrilling: The latest Shaft movie brings nothing new to the screen

The trope of “John Shaft is a dirty old man” is barely enough material to build a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, let alone an entire movie. Yet here we are, the fifth entry in a once-breakthrough series (the third to be titled simply Shaft), and the most we can muster is a sometimes tolerable but mostly forgettable buddy cop action comedy?

There’s so much that could be done with the character’s foundation—a sophisticated detective fueled by righteous anger, combating the destructive forces of corruption, crime, and prejudice all at once. And with a smirking sexuality set against that unstoppable Isaac Hayes-penned theme song, it’s sad to see it all reduced to a “Dad’s horny again” punchline. The earlier films were not great, but they were never phoned in. The fact that this is the successor to the late, great John Singleton’s expectation-defying 2000 reboot is even more disappointing.

You might laugh out loud a few times thanks to the perfect comic timing and chemistry of the cast, who elevate a painfully conventional script and indifferent direction, but that does not make this a good movie any more than a single ghost pepper dropped into a bowl of oatmeal makes it a spicy dish.

In Shaft (2019), JJ (Jessie Usher), an FBI data analyst and son of the long-absent John Shaft II (Samuel L. Jackson) is on the hunt for justice when his friend Karim (Avan Jogia) dies a sudden and suspicious death. With no field experience and even less street smarts, he seeks help from the father he hasn’t seen in decades to infiltrate the shady underworld of international heroin trafficking.

Director Tim Hall’s strength has always been to show what new, underused, or miscast performers can do when given the spotlight. The only problem is the movies themselves usually fail to keep up with the rising star, whether it’s Kevin Hart (Think Like a Man, Ride Along), Regina Hall (Think Like a Man), or Chris Evans (Fantastic Four). But there’s something to say for being ahead of the curve. Strong character moments and funny standalone gags often shine through, and the overall experience is a pleasant one. Then come the sequels—Ride Along 2, Think Like a Man Too, and Rise of the Silver Surfer—where charm alone can’t overcome the feeling of an overstayed welcome. Shaft (2019) cuts right to the sequel stage, feeling redundant almost as soon as the opening credits start (a fact that is not helped by reusing footage of Singleton’s film, showing the drastic downgrade in production value).

It is always a pleasure watching Regina Hall and Samuel L. Jackson work, and their chemistry needs to be recreated as soon as possible in a better movie. Usher is fun as JJ, but the way he turns from a conflicted, driven FBI agent to a wisecracker is way too sudden, and his jokes feel pulled from a different movie. Alexandra Shipp has room to be more than JJ’s love interest; watch out for much more from her. Other than that, there are a few good laughs, a couple of solid chuckles, but a whole lot of wondering why this throwaway comedy bothered to bear the name Shaft.

Shaft / R, 111 minutes / Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056, drafthouse.com/charlottesville z Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213, regmovies.com z Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000, charlottesville.violetcrown.com z Check theater websites for listings.

See it again
The Matrix / R, 150 minutes / The Paramount Theater / June 22