Birds Of Prey Trailer Review: 7 Ups & 4 Downs

1. Mr J And The Issue Of Old Ground

Did we really need as much of Jared Leto's Joker hanging over this movie as we're clearly getting?

The whole point of an emancipation for Harley Quinn was always going to be her moving on, but given how unpopular that version of the Joker was and how great the one about to hit cinemas is, it's a confusing marketing decision to release a trailer mentioning the former so much at this stage.

Even the choice of music is a little odd - the teaser we saw ahead of It 2 had a great take on 'Heads Will Roll' by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but this one goes for a more muted, more emotional Edith Piaf number. It's a song about love and loss and it gives away how much Harley is still preoccupied by Joker and it's hard not to think it's a bad decision to have him continuing to shape her as much as he is.

That might not be the case for the whole film, but all we're going on here is the trailer and so far, the idea of them even partly marketing a movie on the ghost of a character so many people hated is just... weird. Even more problematically, the decision to include him will invite lots of questions, because there's just no way he would have been happy to let Harley leave. And once you start asking that, you begin to wonder how long it is before he turns up - and even if he doesn't, Warner Bros don't need that assumption.

On top of that, it feels like the whole Black Mask storyline is just another attempt at doing a Joker/Harley story. It's flipped a little, because she's railing against his attempt to control her, but we saw that in Suicide Squad. Hopefully the echoes are just being pushed heavily in the trailer to try and spark some familiarity?

What did you think of the trailer? Share your reactions below in the comments thread.