Birds of Prey (2020)

 “You killed my sandwich!"

I absolutely love this film. It is, of course, beyond its obvious and rather successful feminist credentials as a superhero film with a female director and mostly female cast, a blatant version of Pulp Fiction for the superhero genre, complete with the nin-linear storytelling, fetishised ultraviolence and witty pop culture dialogue. This works rather well. There is indeed an uplifting and vaguely feminist message, one might say a fantabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn, but above all this is a fun, entertaining film.

It's also, of course, a film about Gotham and its characters without Batman or his main supporting cast: the Joker is at least noticed, as Harley's ex, by his absence, but Batman has nary a mention; this isn't his film. Instead we have a superlative Margot Robbie as the undoubted star, with Black Canary, Renee Montoya and Huntress very much taking a back seat, and Ewan McGregor in a rare outing as a baddie, almost nailing his American accent as Black Mask.

It's a brave decision to make a superhero film like this, violent and revelling in it, and thereby excluding the younger audience, but the film is just so damn good and witty, almost DC's Deadpool. Script, direction and acting are all first class and the whole thing is just so damn life-affirming. More like this please, DC.