YMMV / Birds of Prey (2020)

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• Aluminum Christmas Trees: When Harley blows up the chemical plant, it creates a bunch of very colorful, almost firework-like explosions. This isn't as silly as it seems, as many chemicals do create fire/sparks in different colors than the standard yellowish-orange fire when burned (indeed, burning chemicals like this is how fireworks are made in the first place.)
• Alternate Character Interpretation: While Doc says he sold out Harley because the allure of enough money to open a new restaurant was too tempting, was part of it motivated by the fact that Harley said his cooking is so bad it needs hot sauce to be tolerable? She was whispering, but she said it to the audience very close to him.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • After all the build-up through the entire movie, Roman is defeated by Harley after a short car chase and blown up with a grenade by Cassandra without much of a fight.
  • Likewise Zsasz is defeated even more easily than Sionis. He is hit by one of Helena's arrows and stabbed multiple times by Harley.
• Awesome Art: The animated segments from Harley's youth (done in-house at Warner Bros. Animation with a lot of the team from Teen Titans Go!) and the end credits are easily as good as any DC cartoon. The art department clearly had plenty of respect for Bruce Timm.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Harley Quinn herself. Many enjoy her Rule of Funny Heroic Comedic Sociopath behaviour and her relationship with the other ladies, but others find her to be too unsympathetic and lacking any reason to root for her. Erasing/downplaying what she suffered at Joker's hands, and portraying her as having always been crazy before him, hasn't helped matters.
  • Helena Bertinelli; some find her to be one of the best parts of the film, specifically enjoying how much of a badass she is as this version of the character is explicitly the best fighter, while enjoying the Adaptational Personality Change that portrays her as a socially awkward dork. Others find the adorkable personality to be too jarring and turns her into a joke character, and dislike how little she's actually utilised in the film.
• Common Knowledge: Fans defending the changes made to Cassandra Cain from the source material (as discussed in several tropes below), claim Christina Hodson and Cathy Yan found the comics Cassandra to be an offensive racist stereotype and felt the need to fix her. Neither of them has ever said or even suggested anything along these lines. In fact, when asked about it Hodson claimed they just needed a character that could bring others together. And now a year later, in now-deleted twitter thread, we had Word of God confirm they wanted a comics-accurate Cass but weren't allowed to.
• Complete Monster:
  • Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask, is the disgraced former heir of the Janus Corporation and the most powerful crime lord in Gotham's East End. Roman is a flamboyant, misogynistic, mood-swinging sadist with a Hair-Trigger Temper who once forcibly strips a woman and reduces her to traumatized tears because—he thinks—she's laughing at him. Roman demonstrates his love of torture via his fondness for having people's faces sliced off while they're alive, having a crime boss and his entire family tortured to death this way. He considers sparing the man's daughter, only to have her killed because he's disgusted by a snot bubble in her nose from crying so hard. Roman, throughout the film, hunts for the Bertinelli family diamond to make himself the most powerful man in Gotham—the Bertinelli family itself massacred down to the children, save for Helena "Huntress" Bertinelli, according to Roman's design—and Roman attempts to kill everyone in his way to get to it, from Harley Quinn to Cassandra Cain to his own singer and driver Dinah "Black Canary" Lance.
  • Victor Zsasz, the right-hand man of Roman Sionis, is a vicious killer who enjoys "releasing" others from existence. Years ago, Zsasz gleefully participated in the Bertinelli family massacre and, as Roman's enforcer, Zsasz does most of the killing for him, including peeling the faces off the victims while they are still alive. Zsasz carves a tally into himself for each victims, boasting of having many, many such marks over his body, and when he finds that young Cassandra Cain has swallowed the Bertinelli diamond, his recourse is try and force Dinah Lance to slit her open before killing all the other heroines.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Roman Sionis having Mr. Keo and his entire family tortured to death is a horrific and grisly scene, up until Roman orders the daughter's death because he's childishly grossed out over her snot bubble.
• Designated Hero: Unlike in Suicide Squad where Harley unapologetically identifies as a "bad guy", she is supposed to be sympathetic in this film. In fact, the subtitle is her own "fantabulous emancipation". Yet, she is still selfish, and her actions are dangerous to others. She never shows any sign of regret for her past crimes (to the point she doesn't even recognize a man who was tortured by the Joker as a consequence of her dare), she often acts violently without any justification and she was ready to surrender Cassandra to Sionis to save her own skin. Quite a few fans complained about the fact she didn't face any kind of consequence for her actions at the end of the movie. Granted, this isn't the first time the character has been accused of this and the movie is told from her point of view.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: As discussed in this video, Harley shows signs of Histrionic Personality Disorder, but it's never mentioned in-universe.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The unnamed bodyguard who saved Helena during her family's massacre has become surprisingly popular with the fandom. The fact he is the only heroic male character in the whole movie and that he helped Helena become the Huntress helped quite a lot.
  • Harley's beloved egg sandwich and her subsequent devastation at its death, which end up earning a spot on Entertainment Weekly's "Best of 2020."
  • Sal, the chef who made Harley's aforementioned egg sandwich. Aside from that, he is well-liked for being a Nice Guy.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Harley's unnamed ex-girlfriend looks an awful lot like Poison Ivy.
  • Before the release, some noticed that the film's IMDB page had a listing for a minor character named Kate. Given Renee Montoya is a main character, some wondered if this Kate would turn out to be a cameo of Kate Kane.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: While the movie ends with Cassandra and Harley selling the diamond and driving away with Bruce, many fans have pointed out Harley is still a wanted criminal and that the two of them may end up separated forever if either the police, a superhero, or even the many criminals who wanted revenge on her decided to go after them. Harley does seem to be aware of this and doesn't really mind — after all, she did willingly back out of Black Mask's deal to sacrifice Cassandra for her personal protection, and then with the help of a few friends just took out one of Gotham's biggest crime lords and his entire personal army, signifying that she's probably capable of taking care of herself, but how true that is is up in the air, especially with Cassandra involved.
• Evil Is Cool: Many fans and critics have praised Ewan McGregor's interpretation as the villainous Roman Sionis, calling him one of the best parts of the movie due to his charisma and how funny he is while still being wonderfully despicable. It's especially notable in that he has relatively little screen time and dies at the end, eliminating any possibility of more of him.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: The film's original ending is frequently mocked by detractors based on the misreported article claiming that the diamond was meant to contain Roman's "dick pics", and that this was changed to avoid giving paedophilic undertones to the underage Cassandra swallowing it. In this ending, the diamond was actually going to contain pictures of a statue of Roman modelled after Michaelangelo's David, not pictures of his real genitals, though the misconception always results in arguments when the scrapped ending is discussed.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • The fandom of the movie and fans of comic book incarnation of Cassandra Cain have been at each other's throats since the premiere. Fans of the comics character are very vocal in their disappointment about the film changing her to the point of In Name Only, being Abled in the Adaptation and a little kid that needs to be protected. Fans of the movie claim such changes were necessary and accuse the original character of being an offensive Asian stereotype.^note Had Cass been mute in the film, she would have been the DCEU's third straight notable female character of Asian descent to have almost no English-language dialogue, following Mercy Graves and Katana. Comics fans fire back that the character doesn't fit that stereotype, and argue that erasure of disability is never good for representation and ask how exactly is Movie Cass an improvement when her role is that of a hopeless child. The year-later revelation this whole change was a result of Executive Meddling and not the director's decision didn't help at all.
  • Comics Birds of Prey and Movie Birds of Prey fans similarly have been quite heated. Commonly cited was the inclusion of Harley Quinn and her over-focus as the protagonist in the movie, which Comic fans complained about as it resulted in both Dinah and Helena being Demoted to Extra and Barbara being written out completely. Fans of the movie consider these moves justified as the movie wouldn't exist without Harley (as it was pitched as a Harley Quinn movie with a few other heroines), and consider the fact Barbara is slated to get her own Batgirl movie as a worthy compromise; however, the fact Barbara is typically Oracle when she's with the Birds, while the film is explicitly slated to be using Batgirl, makes this less-than-reassuring for those that wanted Oracle (especially given the ongoing trouble between fans who adore Barbara-as-Batgirl and those who adore Barbara-as-Oracle, particularly if the latter also prefer Cass or Stephanie as Batgirl).
  • With fans of Harley Quinn (2019) too, thanks to both adapting the general story beat of 'Harley Quinn goes out on her own after breaking up with Joker and bonds with new friends', but with very different approaches. Fans of the show are pretty quick to cast shade at the film for its treatment of the Birds of Prey and Cassandra, as well as for the Unintentionally Unsympathetic portrayal of Harley since the film still tries to present her as a hero, while the animated series plays her as a Villain Protagonist in a Black Comedy who's meant to be a horrible person. It doesn't help that the show includes Harley's best friend and love interest Poison Ivy, while the film used the Birds instead.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Fans are still looking forward to the day that Cassandra Cain will make an appearance outside of the comics, and they absolutely refuse to claim that this film already did that.
• Fan Nickname: Similar to the treatment of "Zilla" from the 1998 Godzilla film, fans of the comic-version of Cassandra Cain have started referring to her film counterpart as "Kassandra Kain" to make her more distinct and separate from the original.
• Friendly Fandoms: Strangely enough, despite their polar opposite tones, fans of Zack Snyder's DC films and fans of this film overlap quite a bit and get along really well with Snyder fans respecting BOP's creativity, unique energy and commitment to its camp tone and fans of BOP enjoying the more serious DC films as a contrast. There are also many fans of Snyder's previous film Sucker Punch who love BOP due to both being action films with ensemble female casts, having a strong and unique creative energy and action sequences and pop heavy soundtracks.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Including a hyena in a film that has a majority-female cast is an appropriate fit when you take into account that hyenas have a female-dominant hierarchy. Also, Bruce, Harley's pet hyena is seemingly killed midway through the film when villains attack Harley's apartment, but in the last scene is revealed to have survived; when they are reunited, Harley comments Bruce apparently has "nine lives, like a cat" (paraphrased). Despite looking like canids, hyenas actually are feliforms instead of caniforms, which make them (very) distant relatives of cats.
  • Harley mourning her ruined sandwich is a parody of the Signature Scene in Hamlet where the titular prince mourns the skull of his friend Yorick. Yorick and Harley are both jesters.
• Ho Yay:
  • The interactions between Zsasz and Roman Sionis look like they are a couple. Notably while Roman is locking eyes with Dinah, Zsasz looks like he's a jealous lover. There's nothing to confirm that they really are a thing, with the closest thing to it is Harley calling Zsasz Roman's "BFF".
    • Roman and Zsasz are together the morning after the club scene, when Dinah rescues Harley. In pajamas.
  • Both Harley and Dinah are very appreciative of Huntress. When she rides to Harley's rescue at the end, there could've been hearts in her eyes, especially since Harley (in both comics and this movie) is canonically bisexual.
• Informed Wrongness: Doc was made out to be an asshole for selling Harley Quinn out, but remember: Harley Quinn is a villain in this film who has done much worse than Doc ever has. It also helps that Harley received little to no consequences for her actions. So Doc selling Harley out (something that causes her possessions to be destroyed) comes off as Laser-Guided Karma for her actions.
• Jerkass Woobie: While Harley isn't a good person by any means, we know from Suicide Squad (2016) that it's not really her fault she's evil, as the Joker tortured her in various ways, including literally frying her brain with an electroshock machine. Her backstory also reveals that even before meeting the Joker, she'd been getting kicked around all her life, meaning her eventual descent into madness and bad judge of character was the just logical next step for her. On top of all that, she has to deal with all the pain that usually comes from a major breakup as well.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • There are John Wick fans who are excited because the director, Chad Stahelski, has crafted action sequences in it. Regardless of the films' content, this guaranteed some impressive and creative set pieces.
  • While the film is mostly a Harley Quinn movie, a number of fans came just to see Black Canary and the Huntress make their movie debut; for the most part, general sentiment among viewers is the two need a spin-off.
  • Not to mention the double-punch of Black Mask: for one, the character is often seen as an underrated and underutilized member of the Gotham gallery. For another, Ewan McGregor has many fans.
• Love to Hate: Roman Sionis is an extremely sadistic and ruthless crime lord as well as a huge Jerkass, however Ewan McGregor's charismatic and darkly hilarious performance makes him steal practically every scene he's in.
• Memetic Mutation: Due to its title, a lot of fans have jokingly complained that it "wasn't actually a nature documentary about eagles".
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Harley's landlord Doc crossed it when he leaked her and Cassandra's whereabouts, all so he could collect the bounty on the latter's head and open up a new restaurant.
  • Black Mask crosses this when he orders Victor to kill a rival criminal's daughter simply because he was disgusted by the snot-bubble in her nose from crying so hard.
  • Victor Zsasz crosses it when he eggs Sionis into taking his anger out on a random woman, claiming she was laughing at him when she clearly wasn't. While she got out in one piece, the fact that Zsasz was so willing to put her in the crosshairs knowing what his boss might do - all for his own amusement - shows him to be a real piece of work.
• Narm Charm: It's drenched in Camp, with previews/a premise that has alienated some viewers, but those who enjoy it, enjoy it because they find it sheer fun.
• Offending the Creator's Own: Some Asian-American fans were livid about the In Name Only treatment of Cassandra Cain, turning her from a dyslexic and near-mute Badass Normal and the World's Best Warrior to a much younger, 'normal' kid who the adult heroes need to protect, with some seeing it as a betrayal of one of the best Asian superheroes.^note Cass' Batgirl run was the second-longest-running comic book series to feature an Asian lead. The screenwriter and director of the movie are both of Asian descent.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Some critics of Jurnee Smollett's casting have argued that it's not right for an iconic blonde bombshell like Black Canary to be played by an actress who isn't a natural blonde, let alone white. These people are apparently unaware the comics had already long ago established that Black Canary isn't a natural blonde (it's naturally black), and that her hair color is the result of either a wig or a dye job, Depending on the Writer. And as for her ethnicity, this is not the first time we've had a non-white Black Canary; in First Wave (DC Comics), Canary got a white-to-Indian Race Lift. And, even before that, there was an African-American Black Canary in Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl, published in 1998.
  • Some have criticized Black Mask's dress sense (namely the tieless white suit with a Hawaiian shirt) as being garish and flamboyant even by Gotham City standards. Despite this, Black Mask has worn a near-identical ensemble in his acclaimed appearance in Batman: Under the Red Hood. Similarly, those unhappy with promos depicting Roman Sionis without his namesake mask would do well to keep in mind that from the late 90s onwards, Roman's signature charred skull look was not a mask but his actual face. To say nothing of his original look in the comics, which made him look like a more thuggish version of The Mask.
  • Roman Sionis making the incredibly bone-headed decision to entrust retrieving the Bertinelli diamond to Zsasz, who just keeps it in his pocket is very much in-character for him, as his comic-book backstory shows him ruining his family's business with ridiculous business choices.
• Questionable Casting: The infamous casting of Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain. Despite being of Asian descent like her comic book counterpart, she is younger, being 14-years-old while Cassandra is around 16 or older and is of both Filipino and Korean descent (Cassandra is part-Chinese).
• Rated M for Money: After the success of Deadpool and Joker, it seems to have been reasoned that being rated R would benefit this movie. The opening weekend box office would indicate this was an incorrect assumption. Some commentators have argued this mistake led to a worse box office based on a simple premise: the biggest name draw of the movie is Harley Quinn and it is believed that a very large segment of Harley Quinn's fanbase is young girls—many of whom likely wouldn't have been able to see it even if they wanted to.
• Salvaged Story: Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad was wildly popular, but also attracted criticism for catering to the Male Gaze to ludicrous degrees, which many saw as prettifying mental illness. Birds of Prey's promotional material gives her an outfit that, while still revealing, is also far less sexualized, styling her character as a Cloudcuckoolander instead of walking eye-candy.
• The Scrappy:
  • This film's version of Cassandra Cain has few fans due to being an In Name Only take of the character, and her existence scuppers any chance of a more comics-accurate Cassandra Cain from making an appearance in the franchise. Even Gail Simone considered this as one of the film's negative points despite enjoying the movie otherwise.
  • Renee Montoya has also been met with unanimously unfavorable reactions by viewers. Her self-serving goals, in which she has been known to take extreme law-enforcement measures, coupled with the occasional use of deception have led to her being seen as a character whose decisions are largely guided by her own ambitions. Her decision to depart from the police force upon the movie's resolution has left many viewers with the distinct impression that her own desires come before any consideration for what is best for society and justice.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: While the film has gotten good reviews, the first act is consistently pointed out as the weakest. It takes time to introduce everyone and get going, especially considering the story is structured non-linearly.
• Squick: Zsasz cuts off a man's face. While we don't see the corpse, we do see Zsasz brandishing the face and taunting his wife with it. The sound the face makes when it is dropped onto the ground also is quite gross.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Compared to Suicide Squad, which was criticized for being an overall narrative and tonal mess, Birds of Prey, while still having significant issues of its own, is considered an improvement for sticking to a whimsical approach and trying to be more fun.
• Tainted by the Preview: The bizarre ad campaign for the movie, which played up the quirkiness over selling what the story was about or who the title team are (and why they matter to Harley Quinn), seemed to turn off a lot of the film's potential audience.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Between her Age Lift and her being Abled in the Adaptation, most fans have accused the movie of using a In Name Only version of Cassandra Cain, to the point even Gail Simone, who otherwise loved the movie, had to admit this seriously bothered her. A major point of contention is that there were many other characters who could have fulfilled this role, such as Harper Row or Sin, or even Stephanie Brown, and by using Cassandra's name, it wasted the opportunity to adapt her properly within the DCEU.
  • The lack of Barbara Gordon didn't sit well with many fans; the creative team wanted to use her, but they were told no by the studio, and in the end, it's Renee Montoya who becomes the actual team leader.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Harley is the only character with a full character arc. Aside from her, underused characters abound:
  • Huntress makes a great impression and arguably has the best backstory but she definitely gets the least amount of screen time of the main five characters.
  • The titular Birds of Prey in general receive very little focus compared to Harley and only band together as a team in the final act of the film. This was so apparent that the title of the film was changed post-release to Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey.
  • Cassandra Cain in the comics has a lot of interesting parallels with the film's other characters: she has a history of abuse like Harley, is part of a legacy like Black Canary, was raised by assassins like Huntress, and her father was an alcoholic like Renee is. None of this is used in the film, and she bears no resemblance to her comic counterpart. It's entirely possible the only reason the film used her, rather than Stephanie Brown, Harper Row or a half-dozen other female characters whose backstory wouldn't have had to be so heavily altered, is because of the movie's clear desire to have a fully racially-diverse cast, and she is the only notable young female Asian character in that part of the DC Universe.
  • Rather than explore her angst over her mother's death or bonding with any of the women, Dinah spends much of the film as Roman Sionis' reluctant henchwoman. The mild Adaptational Villainy meant that the bulk of her character was only able to shine through small scenes, and compared to Huntress and Harley, she ended up getting saddled with largely unremarkable fight sequences, which is disappointing given her comic self is one of the top-ten best martial artists in the DC Universe, something that isn't really well-reflected in the movie.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite the film's premise being based around Harley's breakup with the Joker, very little of their actual relationship is touched upon, especially the potentially abusive aspects of it. This was probably inevitable due to how poorly received Jared Leto's Joker was and the negative impression he made on the studio and the rest of the cast, including Margot Robbie, and a recast was probably not happening (though there are BTS photos of Harley in a domestic dispute with a Fake Shemp Joker seen from afar outside their house, it ended up on the cutting room floor).
  • While the film is focused entirely on Harley and its long, full title is literally about her emancipation, Harley's doesn't actually go through much of an arc leading to this. Her backstory established her having an Abusive Dad and a romantic dependency that coloured her choice to cling to Joker even after their break-up, but after bombing Ace Chemicals, very little is brought up about her need for others until the climax, where Roman repeats some spiel that her roller derby teammates had said earlier about her needing a relationship. In-between these points, she's never presented as being in-need of a partner or dependent on others, and even when she briefly offers to work for Sionis to find Cassandra, it's not out of a genuine dedication to him. Given the similarities between Joker and Sionis, Harley having a personal attachment to Sionis could have been a means to discuss Harley's dependency issues as well as giving her a personal motivation/conflict with him beyond 'Sionis finds her really annoying'.
  • More than one person has said the movie should've centered on Huntress, who actually has a direct connection to the story, rather than Harley Quinn.
  • We never see Sionis learning about Zsasz' death. Considering how close the two of them were, it would have been interesting if one of Sionis' reasons to go after Harley and the other heroines had been to get revenge for Zsasz' death.
  • The characters don't unite until the last act; while several of them have had run-ins with one-another in a one-on-one basis, none of them even know Huntress is a thing until they meet her at the amusement park and subsequently don't have much space for banter. Given that one of the main highlights of the film has been the character interactions, its hard not to feel the movie could have benefited by having the girls converge much earlier and have Helena be far more involved in the diamond plot line.
• Uncertain Audience:
  • In the wake of the movie's underwhelming opening weekend, a number of critics and box office analysts have suggested that the film's seemingly-arbitrary R-rating might have hurt its chances at the box office, particularly given Harley Quinn's popularity with the same demographic of teens and young girls who had helped make the PG-13 Suicide Squad a massive hit. It's been argued that Birds of Prey's colorful aesthetic and wackiness might have played well to a younger demographic, particularly since most of the gore and profanity could have been removed or at least downplayed without really affecting the plot.
  • There's also the matter of the film ostensibly being a Birds of Prey adaptation when the titular team are supporting characters to Harley Quinn (a character that has received backlash from comic book fans due to perceived overexposure), along with the changes to said team making the adaptation potentially unappealing to those fans. Since general audiences were relatively unfamiliar with the team and there wasn't a pent-up demand for the movie — unlike what happened with Deadpool — the R-rating also hurt the film's reach. This is reflected the original Overly Long Name and that WB had the name changed shortly after release to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, as the movie just wasn't quite sure what they were trying to advertise.
• Unexpected Character: When the movie was first announced, few imagined it would feature Cassandra Cain as one of the main characters, while Barbara Gordon is entirely absent. It seemed notable because Cass has a storied history of always being shafted by the higher-ups at DC, passing her over for the much more popular Barbara Gordon. Then the movie released, and it turned out the character was Cassandra Cain In Name Only and only existed as a Living MacGuffin to tie the story of all the other characters together.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Renee Montoya is portrayed by Harley's narration as a beleaguered Detective who unjustly had all her past credit stolen by her previous partner and current captain, Erickson. The narrative clearly wants to portray her as a frustrated detective obstructed by her incompetent captain. The issue is Captain Erickson is never actually shown giving unreasonable orders in the present and Montoya comes across as glory seeking over building a proper case, resorting to Cowboy Cop tactics, trying to bully Dinah into being an informant and even lies and implicates her ex, Ellen Ye, to do so. The ending where she quits the force after Erikson got the credit for rounding up Black Masks' goons, and she goes to work with the vigilante Birds of Prey team, furthers her selfish behavior rather than the "only good cop" that the movie was trying to go for.
  • Generally this is why some consider Harley a Designated Hero. We are supposed to feel sorry for her traumatic childhood and abusive relationship with the Joker, but this doesn't change the fact she willingly helped him in his numerous crimes, including the assassination of Robin. After he dumped her, she lies about it for an unspecified amount of time openly admitting this allows her to do what she wants without facing any consequence. After she reveals the truth and she is captured by Sionis, she offers to capture Cassandra for him to save her own skin. Even if she originally planned to simply take the diamond and she even established a positive relationship with Cassandra, she decides to throw her under the bus after her landlord Doc sold her out and literally throws Montoya out of a window when she tries to stop her. While she ultimately apologizes and sides with the other heroines, this happens only after it became clear Sionis had no intentions to spare her life and she had no other option besides dying.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Special props must be given to the work done on Bruce the hyena, who looks like he just stepped out of the 2019 remake of The Lion King. The CGI work on him was so good, in fact, the film’s budget could only allow for one hyena when Harley usually has two.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Considered the prime reason for the movie's surprise box office underperformance on its opening weekend. The film itself lacked much of the taboo that prior DC film Joker had, with only the strong profanity (and one scene of extreme violence) necessitating the R rating. As many of Harley Quinn's fans skew younger, the decision to release it under that rating, completely cutting the younger demographic out of the picture, was considered a major misfire on Warner Bros.' (and by extension Margot Robbie, who lobbied heavily for the R rating) part.
• The Woobie:
  • Erika, an innocent clubgoer in Sionis' club who is laughing loudly about something unrelated when he gets mad. Somehow, he gets it in his head she is laughing at him, and forces her boyfriend to cut her dress off just to terrify and humiliate her in front of everyone.
  • Mr. Keo's daughter as well, while her parents were mob bosses she was just an innocent girl who happened be related to them. Sionis' reason for killing her (she starts crying out of fear, and he gets grossed out when she has a snot bubble) just makes the whole thing all the more vile.

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