Margot Robbie is everything we love about Harley Quinn in the new Birds of Prey movie trailer.

We’ve been on the edge of our collective seats waiting for Margot Robbie’s return to the big screen as Harley Quinn after her portrayal of the Clown Princess of Crime in last year’s DC universe film Suicide Squad. We thought this new trailer was going to be good, but this is beyond expectations.

We’ll let you watch this first, then we’ll be back with notes. Pause the SCIFI.radio stream using the controller at the upper right before hitting play.

There’s a reason all the posters for the new Harley Quinn action flick Birds of Prey all seem to feature Margot Robbie in the lead role, and aren’t really showing a lot of the other characters, and now we know what that reason is. In this first full length trailer, apart from one good shot of Black Canary on her motorcycle in the beginning, it’s all Harley, all the time.

Harley Quinn debuted in Batman: The Animated Series, followed by a long tenure in comics. In most versions, the femme fatale has a pair of pet Hyenas named Bud and Lou, and they’re making their live-action debut. You’ll see Harley sharing a red Twizzler with one of them in a Lady and the Tramp moment.

Harley has had it with the Joker, had it with being a sidekick, had it with being ignored or assumed to be somebody else’s supplicant. Now she’s out to carve a chunk out of the world for herself. If the hole she carves out happens to bleed profusely, she’s actually okay with that. She’s joined by Black Canary (Jurnee Smollet-Bell) and Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to round out the trio – which means there’s no Catwoman in this film, but that’s okay. With a cast list this full, it’s usually a struggle to tell a good story, so not having the extra characters is probably a good thing.

Of course every film has to have a villain, and since Harley Quinn is the anti-hero, who’s it going to be? None other than Ewan MacGregor as the Black Mask – though to the probable disappointment of some, he’s not actually wearing a Black Mask in the trailer (maybe this comes later).

The trailer is a non-stop tour de force , and all about the emancipation of Harley Quinn. This is Quinn owning her identity and taking a spike covered baseball bat to everything that stands in her way. This is empowering stuff. There is going to be a massive response to this in the movie-going public, and especially in geekdom where women find themselves oppressed in half a dozen different ways that mainstream non-fans never experience. This film is going to be huge.

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn stars Margot Robbie, Ewan MacGregor, Jurnee Smollet-Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Chris Messina, and is scheduled for release on February 7, 2020.

We can’t wait.

The Song in the Background

We’re the world’s only full time geek and pop culture radio station, so we can’t not comment on the song used as the soundtrack music in this trailer. The song is by French singer Edith Piaf. Piaf first sang this song at the Cabaret Versailles in New York City on September 14, 1949. It was written to her lover and the love of her life, the French boxer, Marcel Cerdan. On October 28, 1949, Cerdan was killed in a plane crash on his way from Paris to New York to come to see her. She recorded the song on May 2, 1950.

The desperation of love lost after being so deeply embraced is a strong undercurrent in the entire Harley Quinn story arc (well, that and Stockholm syndrome). It makes sense, then, that the song was selected for the trailer, and we would be very surprised if it doesn’t figure prominently in the film as well. Here are the lyrics, translated from French:

The blue sky over us can collapse on itself
and the ground can (really) cave in.
Little matters to me if you love me
I couldn't care less about the whole world
As long as love will flood my mornings
As long as my body will tremble under your hands
The problems make little difference to me
My love, because you love me.
 
I will go to the end of the world
I will dye my hair blond
If you ask me to
I will go take down the moon
I will steal fortune
if you ask me to.
 
I will renounce my country
I will renounce my friends
if you ask me to.
One could really laugh at me
I will do anything
if you ask me to.
 
if one day life tears you away from me
if you die than you will be far from me
what's it matter if you love me
because I will die too.
We will have for us, eternity
in the blue of all the immensity
in heaven, no more problems
my love do you believe that we love each other
God, reunite those who love each other.

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