"Suicide Squad," "Birds of Prey," and the Future of the DCEU
These two films, connected by the character of Harley Quinn, demonstrate two different paths for the DC Extended Universe.
Here lately I’ve really immersed myself in the DC Extended Universe (the DCEU), though I’m not exactly sure why. I’m more a Marvel Cinematic Universe guy, honestly. I love the way that the MCU has managed to tie so many disparate stories together into one complex and ornate narrative construction; it appeals to my love of epic fantasy and the fun of completely losing yourself in a fictional world. The DCEU, by contrast, offers a different set of pleasures, and it’s taken me a while to really appreciate this MCU alternative and its distinct approach to the superhero genre.
Now, I also happen to be one of those people who makes every effort to enjoy a film on its own terms. That is to say, I go into each and every movie that I watch attempting to suss out what it’s trying to do, rather than measuring it against some preconceived standard. It’s this approach that allowed me to really appreciate Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and its the mindset with which I approached The Suicide Squad.
Unfortunately, about an hour in I had to accept an unfortunate truth: sometimes a movie is just not that enjoyable, and no amount of optimism can change that.
This is a particularly frustrating feeling to have with a film like Suicide Squad. From all that I had seen and heard about it--mostly via trailers and magazine covers--I was expecting a rather off-beat superhero film, one that had villains as the main characters. What I did not expect was a film that felt like it was written by committee and that forced a traditional superhero/apocalypse narrative onto the skeleton of a very different story. Given the critical vitriol that was poured on the film at the time of its release, I clearly wasn’t the only one left stymied about what, exactly, this film was doing.
A big part of the problem, as many have noted, is that Suicide Squad lacks any sort of narrative coherence, mostly because its villain, Enchantress, lacks motivation for her desire to end the world and, for the most part, spends the film gyrating in front of some magical doomsday doodad that she’s conjured largely out of thin air. The film doesn’t seem particularly interested in giving her a backstory or a rationale, leaving us in the audience rather stymied as to why she hates humanity so much.
However, it’s also worth pointing out that Suicide Squad is also a victim of its own marketing. Among other things, the buzz around it made it seem as if it was going to be something other than a standard superhero movie, that perhaps it might even eschew the traditional narrative altogether. This certainly seems the case in the beginning, in which Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller, a representative of the oppressive state apparatus, decides to recruit a number of villains in the hopes of circumventing the possibility that the next Superman might have interests not aligned with those of the United States. All too soon, however, the film veers off into all sorts of weird directions, its narrative incoherence compounded by some very strange cinematographic choices (like having the climactic fight take place in the rain, which makes it almost impossible to see what’s going on). It certainly doesn’t help that the role of the Joker, much-hyped in the lead-up, ends up being more of a glorified cameo.
Which brings us to Birds of Prey. Even the most hostile critics of Suicide Squad acknowledged that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn was a standout. From the moment that she appears she owns the screen, and it’s hard not to love her character and the ludic, potent energy she possesses. Birds finally makes her the center of her own narrative, and it’s a better film for it.
In fact, Birds of Prey is everything that Suicide Squad was not. Rather than continuing to flog the weary horse of apocalyptic narratives, Birds focuses instead on a smaller (and more interesting) story, about a Gotham crime lord seeking to procure a diamond that holds the key to a vast fortune. Harley Quinn, recently spurned by the Joker, gets ensnared in this plot. In the process, she meets up with some unlikely allies, including Mary Elizaeth Winstead’s Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell’s Black Canary, Rosie Perez’s Renee Montoya, and Ella Jay Basco’s Cassandra Cain.
The result, as the critics noted, is a film that’s surprisingly fun for a DCEU property. It moves along at a fast pace, driven by Harley’s narration, and though most of the characters began as adversaries, by the end they’ve united to fight back against the brutal and sadistic forces of patriarchy. Each of the members of the cast are at the top of their games, though there’s no doubt that Robbie steals the show (it certainly helps that the entire film is narrated in her voiceover). I wasn’t bored for a minute, and I found it refreshing to watch a comic book movie that wasn’t all about saving the world.
From my point of view, it seems that at this point the DCEU stands at something of a crossroads. On the one hand, it can continue down the road of such ventures as Suicide Squad and the original cut of Justice League, both of which had the feel of films written by committee and focus-grouped to death. The other lies with films like Birds of Prey, which offers women the chance to be the center of their own stories (and to have agency) and, just as importantly, allows for directors and other creators to produce something that actually has a motivating spirit and energy.
This choice has particular importance for the DCEU, which lacks the central creative authority of the MCU (which has been and remains under the aegis of Kevin Feige). The lack of an overarching story for the DCEU--despite some gestures in that direction from the films directed by Zack Snyder--is both an opportunity and a danger. Part of what makes the MCU such a pleasure to watch is the sense that each film functions both as a self-contained unit and as part of a larger story, and I’m not convinced that the DECU can or should try to do the same thing. Indeed, if Warners insists that the DCEU compete with the MCU on the latter’s terms, it seems to me that it’s going to continue losing. However, if it takes some lessons from Birds of Prey (and the surprising success of Zack Snyder’s Justice League), there’s a very real possibility that it could provide alternative types of pleasure. Films in the DCEU can take risks: they can be bleaker and more existential than their Marvel counterparts (looking at you, Batman v. Superman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League), or they be quirky and fun and sexy and glossy and iconoclastic (like Birds of Prey and, hopefully, like the forthcoming The Suicide Squad). What they can’t do is be boring.
Let’s just hope that the powers-that-be at the DCEU don’t waste their next opportunities.