It’s been almost radio silence from DC since Shazam was released in March last year, but Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) has brought the comic-franchise back with a blood-filled storm.

The marketing for this film has been terrible. When the trailers first came out, I didn’t think much of it.

It looked standard, a bit cliche, and very much like Suicide Squad - something that no one wants - and so it kind of crept up on me.

But before I knew it, it was out in cinemas, ready for me to go and get a verdict.

A lot of news outlets have reported about how poor it has been doing financially, if poor is the right word. It had a budget of $84m and has already made $79m worldwide, that’s not what I would call poor.

But despite all that negative press, the reviews had been good and it all pointed to another good entry into the DC cinematic universe.

And this film delivers, for the most part.

I’ll start with the cast. Margot Robbie of World of Wall Street fame reprises her role as Harley Quinn, last seen being broken out of a prison by Jared Leto’s Joker, who is referenced but does not appear in this film. Sorry Leto fans.

Margot delivers an excellent performance which perfectly captures the madness and carefree attitude that Harley often has in the comics. It’s safe to say that she was born for this role and it’s very hard to see anyone else replacing her.

The supporting cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary and Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya.

All give solid performances and successfully ground this story with an emotional core.

But the stand-out by far is Ewan McGregor as Roman Sionis. His swagger and attitude steals every single scene that he’s in and at times, I was just waiting for him to come back.

He was definitely the best part of this movie.

The main plot is centred around Sionis retrieving this diamond and Harley - eventually - trying to stop him from getting it. It’s that simple

If you’re coming into this looking for plenty of cliched DC references then you may be disappointed.

This film is, obviously, based in Gotham City which means plenty of references to The Batman as well as Mr J -The Joker - but that’s about as far as it goes.

No Wonder Woman nods, no Shazam hints, nothing outside of the Batman mythos and that’s not terrible.

The fact that it doesn’t reference things outside of that small pocket means this is a very well contained and driven film. It knows what story it wants to tell and it knows how to tell it.

Being rated 15, I was expecting a bit more blood that your usual comic-book film. The best comparison to this is Deadpool, with the swearing and gore, but that’s about as far as the parallels go.

While Harley does break the fourth wall occasionally, it’s no where near as much as the Marvel hero.

But this film does rack up the swearing - mainly from McGregor - and it racks up the gore. It’s definitely not a film to take your superhero-loving child to.

One of the best aspects of this movie is the fight choreography.

There are a few fight scenes that take place at different parts throughout and all of them are thrilling and entertaining to watch. The camera flows easily around the action and you never lose track of who’s fighting who and where everyone is.

Overall, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a fun, essentially harmless adventure in the DC universe. It’s humour is dark and funny and it is shot pretty well.

It’s not the best film of the year, or the best film from DC, but you can definitely turn your brain off and have a good time.

Connor Mountford