‘Birds Of Prey’ Is A Fun, Fast, Feathery Mess

The degree to which any given Marvel or DC/Warners movie manages to distinguish itself from the slew of punch-em-ups that have come before is a function of tone, more than anything else. The demands of the genre (innocents to protect, evil to punish, MacGuffins to procure, training to montage) are such that filmmakers are forced to innovate around the margins. So it should come as no surprise that the plot of Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) feels like it’s running along on some well-worn rails: Bad guy (Ewan McGregor) and his henchman (Chris Messina) want an object (a diamond that … you know what never mind, not important) and are willing to murder an innocent (Ella Jay Basco) to get it; a rag-tag crew is forced to work together to keep that from happening and punish said guy, and said hench (along with a horde of day-players in riot gear), in the process. The rag-tag crew in question sports some pretty ragged tags: There’s just-dumped-by-the