pros:
- Dinah, at first, is depicted as a reluctant hero who ends up getting involved in this mess because she cares too much. I found that to be very reminiscent and reflective of the comic character. Dinah first gets recruited by Black Mask to become his driver because he sees her fighting to protect Harley from being sexually assaulted and possibly worse in an alley. After that she gets further involved because she cares about Cassandra's well-being, which very much reminded me of Canary and Sin.
- The aforementioned fight in the alley was by far my favorite. She looked great, it showcased her strength and skill as a fighter and was the first moment where I thought to myself, "Damn. Now I get that this depiction could really work".
- The Canary Cry shows up once, but that is absolutely fine. I feel like they definitely saved it for a part of the movie that made sense. I am also glad that much like her comic book counterpart, she mostly relied on her martial arts prowess as opposed to simply falling back on her metagene. The reason why she doesn't want to use her power or even be a hero is quickly explained and could be fleshed out more, but it was clearly communicated to the audience. Also, I was quite curious as to what her cry would sound like and even though I was a little underwhelmed at first, after it was over I thought what they went for made absolute sense. Her cry sounded like a modulated scream- nothing too high pitched or bird like.
cons:
- As mentioned above, the costume department and other members of the crew, in my opinion let Jurnee and the character down. I have no problem with her race or her hair, but much more with her piercing (I understand that Jurnee wears that in real life, as well) and her costumes. Not only does the character's wardrobe not resemble the Dinah Lance we know from the comics enough for my taste, the piercing was quite distracting. I don't simply mean distracting because it was something in the center of her face, but it also kept catching light and essentially glowed on screen.
This is a low-res image from the trailer, but I guarantee you it was in the movie, as well and was projected on a huge screen. I felt that every time the light caught the piercing it momentarily took me out of the scene and it took me a moment to regain my focus. Perhaps a smaller ring should have been used or something could have potentially been done about the lighting to minimize the reflection in the darker scenes. In addition to the distraction from the piercing and the fact that I feel Dinah's particular style from the comics was lost in translation, the costume that everyone was praising, you know, the one with the fishnets? It's only in the movie for 5 seconds at the very end.
Yes, it makes sense that she only get an actual costume at the end of the movie after the official formation of the Birds of Prey, but still, how is it that the most comic accurate suits are worn on stage for 10 seconds and at the end of the movie for 5 seconds? People might say, wait for the sequel, this was just her introduction, but I was hoping for more visual cues that would excite me and make me go, "THIS IS THE BLACK DAMN CANARY!"
- Dinah using Harley's bat and holding on to a gun for way too long. Should Dinah be proficient in wielding weapons? Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want to see her bash guys' heads in with one. Honestly, the bat and gun were only a part of her arsenal during the fun house scenes, but I thoroughly enjoyed her more when she was delivering powerful kicks and punches. Is this critique really necessary? No. But I wanted to mention it anyway, because the bat, especially, is heavily advertised in promotional images and merchandise.
- Lastly, I want to talk about some moments that I felt were out of character for Dinah. This criticism kind of goes to Huntress, as well towards the end of the movie. During the fun house sequence, where Harley and the rest of the girls get ready to fight and are gathering supplies the tone shifts and all of a sudden things become quite quirky and it doesn't feel organic. AT ALL. Up until this point of the movie Canary was very put together, a badass in every sense of thew word and then in the "I love this chick. She has rage issues" scene Dinah all of a sudden becomes goofy and makes this over-exaggerated face:
It's almost as if someone said to the director, "remember, this movie is supposed to be funny. If we don't have the other characters act a certain way they will feel like they are in an entirely different movie". Canary and Huntress for a short while and a few gags turn up the shtick and overact and compensate with comedy for what otherwise have been hard ass women, kicking major butt. There was absolutely no need to have Canary and Huntress make silly faces or yell to deliver their lines. Dinah had funny moments throughout the movie previously without having to act like she was in a National Lampoon movie.
- This is very minor, but I don't recall seeing Canary smoke in the movie, which is a good thing! But they really could have left the cigarette tucked behind her ear and the nicotine patches on the cutting room floor if they were not willing to make it a part of the movie and play up the fact that she was potentially damaging her voice on purpose. I'm glad we didn't see her smoke and do damage to herself, but as I said, then just leave it out entirely. |