The best thing about 2016's Suicide Squad was the over-the-top performance of Margot Robbie as the Joker's gal pal, Harley Quinn.

The best thing about 2020's Birds of Prey (aka, The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is the over-the-top performance of Margot Robbie as the Joker's former gal pal, Harley Quinn.

Otherwise, they are not at all the same film. Suicide Squad was an outside-the-box effort by the folks at DC to come up with something that could compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And, while it didn't entirely succeed, it was memorable for at least trying a different approach. It had its gritty moments, sure, but Squad played a lot of its action and character interaction for laughs.

BoP also has a lot of laughs, and how could it not, with Robbie's spot-on Harley leading the charge? But it also amps up the gritty, using its R rating -- still something of a rarity in the comic-book movie genre -- to increase both violence and language.

It also introduces some new characters into DC's cinematic world, but for the most part less successfully than they've been done by DC's television counterpart.

This "Birds of Prey" team, by the way, is not the same team used in the comics. Just sayin'.

Also, just to get this out of the way, I'm not buying into the mindset of some moviegoers who claim that, since the main protagonists are female and the villains are male, there's some kind of man-hating message at play here. No, just stop it. It's OK to have strong female characters, guys.

Anyway, the ladies of "Prey" are tough-as-nails Gotham cop Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), who wears every '80s cop-movie trope like a badge; mob daughter turned vigilante Helena Bertinelli (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), as the vengeance-driven, crossbow-wielding Huntress; and Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a songstress with a heart of gold, whose reluctance to work for a villain transforms her into the crime-fighting Black Canary. Along for the ride is teenage pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), who picked the wrong pocket and is now running around with some very valuable contraband in her intestines.

It's a solid team, brought together by circumstances into reluctant cooperation with Harley to fight their way out of a harrowing situation. But, while Robbie steals every scene she's in with her humor and crazy charm, the others mostly fade into the background. Not one of them stands out or makes a memorable impression. (I'm not entirely sure they realized they were in the same movie as Harley.)

Only slightly better are the main villains: Roman "Black Mask" Sionis (a scenery-chewing Ewan McGregor) and his main henchman, the homicidal Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina). McGregor does what he can with the material -- and he seems to have a lot of fun doing it -- but his is not a thrilling plot.

The movie takes place just after Harley has decided to accept the fact that she and the Joker (Jared Leto's less-than-popular interpretation of the character from Squad) are broken up for good, and she's acting out in a big way. Unfortunately for her, once all the people she's wronged over the years (including Sionis) realize she's no longer under the Joker's considerable protection, an all-out war on Harley is declared -- with violent, often comical results.

The result is a lot of fun, full of wit and violence, color and flash. I didn't love the gimmick of having Harley speak directly to the audience; it worked in Deadpool, but that was the exception, not the rule. But Robbie is so damn good that I would gladly watch more with her in the title role. (Fortunately, plans have been announced to use her in at least a few more DC films, including a Suicide Squad sequel, a Gotham City "bad girls" feature and, surprisingly, a possible reunion of Harley and the Joker.)

Bring it on. Whether or not the Birds of Prey return is of less concern.