Birds of Prey: The Chronological Edit

This is my second review of Wakeupkeo's work, first being The Suicide Squad: Special Edition, which was a big upgrade from the original. Firstly, my brief thoughts on the original Birds of Prey and the blah blah...I didn't even bother with watching it in cinema and oh boy I was so glad for that decision. When I watched it at home I simply couldn't wait for it to be over with (I don't like not watching a film to the end, even bad ones). So let's say my enjoyment factor was a 2. Which means, I didn't had my hopes up for any fanedit, because they can't change the core of the movie, no matter how talented the editor is. But I was still curious how much of an impovement could be achieved, because I'm a big DC fan and I really want to love or simply enjoy as many movies of it as possible.

Technical-wise, it was excellent! Not that I was expecting anything less, having seen the Suicide Squad. I couldn't find a single scene were I noticed or "felt" that something was tampered with. That goes for the audio too and since I'm not a native english speaker and the edit doesn't have subtitles, I had the volume pretty high up so I would have noticed if something was off.

Now, for the important part, the narrative. It was definitely an impovement! It was more streamlined, the over the top silliness in certain scenes was trimmed down, more coherent and overall having the runtime barely touching the 1h30m mark was great! Unfortunately, although I enjoyed it more, it did not save it for me, but I wasn't expecting it to anyway.

This edit is recommended either for any DC fan, like me, who just wants to give it another shot or to anyone who found the movie "ok" and above. If you did, this version will be your go-to for any future DCEU marathons!

Thank you Wakeupkeo and thanks to anyone who read my review!

I hated this movie so much when it came out, mostly because of the unchronogical order and the message (all men are trash, okay we get it). But with this fan edit, despite the remaining of the message, the movie is now more linear and clearly more understandable, now I can finally enjoy a nice Gotham City story with good action sequences.

Much like the theatrical cut of Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey tried to introduce too many characters and set up a franchise while telling a non-chronological, barely sensical plot, which resulted in a nigh-unwatchable movie. And once again, wakeupkeo has managed to work his magic, making this movie comprehensible, fun and possessed of actual character arcs. (Though as a Cassandra Cain fan from way back, I'm still a bit cranky about her killer assassin-turned-Batgirl being transformed for the screen into a lowly pickpocket.)

Though the refining process here doesn't amount to quite the same intense pleasant surprise of a movie as the same editor's re-edit of Suicide Squad, it's still enjoyable to watch Robbie's Harley Quinn evolve into a more likeable version of her psychotic clown sidekick, setting the stage for James Gunn's The Suicide Squad. The actual titular Birds of Prey get the short shrift here, as this movie seems to set them up for an actual film of their own that we'll likely never see (although I remain hopeful for them to play a role in the upcoming Batgirl film).

The fight choreography, particularly in the jailbreak sequence, is given more room to breathe in this edit and is one of the centerpieces of the film, thanks to John Wick director Chad Stahelski's pinch-hitting. In all, and not at all surprisingly, wakeupkeo has taken a movie that was edited-to-death and reverse engineered it back to life, as a worthy middle chapter to the Harley Quinn Trilogy.

I also enjoyed this version of the movie, the editor did a superb job of cutting together the scenes in chronological order, while further editing them and cutting other things out. I do not think that this movie can get any better with editing than this.

On the movie itself, I personally was never a fan of Jared Leto "play-acting" the joker, this role is a huge responsibility and takes a certain actor and acting imho and he does not do it for me. I also found Margot Robbie somehow a bit closer to the comic-version in the first Suicide Squad movie than in this one. Although she has really good and funny scenes here as well, in this movie she comes across way more as a "drunk stripper" to cite Will Smith from Suicide Squad :)

The only thing regarding the edit that was apparent to me was the introduction texts to the characters. Of course this is hard to compensate when changing the scenes and when they are hardcoded on the screen. But this took me out a few times, since this reminded me that certain scenes in the original cut came earlier. But I guess there is not a lot to do here.

Great work again, thanks for the effort and enjoyment! Always great to watch a Wakeupkeo cut :)

They say if you want to tell a story right, you gotta start at the beginning. Literally the opening line of the movie, says it all. The Chronological Edit makes a good movie more watchable, love it. If only you could make more than one goon at a time attack the main characters. Or not, best movie ever.