Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)—the fizzy, hyper-violent, female-powered, R-rated DC flick—makes you want to scream and shout. In good ways. Also, in some not-so-good ways.

The movie got set up in the finale of its incoherent 2016 predecessor, Suicide Squad, when Margot Robbie’s psychotic green-haired boyfriend, the Joker (Jared Leto, stinking up the joint), sprang Harley Quinn from imprisonment only to shackle and oppress her in other ways. As a former shrink, Harley should have known that psychotic supervillains will pull that sort of crap, right? Freeing herself—and, mercifully, the rest of us—from the drag that was Leto leaves unhinged, psychopathic Harley itching for emancipation and the chance to avenge herself by blowing up shit and teaming up for some throughly righteous girl-power ass-kicking. We’re so in.

And Birds of Prey starts well enough with glitter-spattered pop-art-cartoon exposition, captions, merry mayhem, winking nihilism and lots of Robbie’s chatterbox Brooklyn-ese narration that sounds like Betty Boop or Guys and Dolls‘ lovelorn Adelaide on Adderall. But losing the protection of Gotham’s scariest supervillain leaves Harley spending most of her waking hours in grimy Gotham. She’s brawling, boozing too hard in bars and ramming an oil truck into a chemical factory, the site of hers and the Joker’s sacred date spot. She also gets chased, pummeled and thrashed by goons looking to pay her back for the damage she inflicted on them in the past.

Thing is, though, Harley never actually gets hurt or so much as bruised, even while she whirls around the place doing backflips, colliding with speeding cars and smashing dudes’ legs. Smiling and delivering weak Ain’t-I-cool-and-edgy? quips while giving and taking a licking, she comes off as dim, masochistic and annoying. What’s really at stake? Enter nightclub owner—and heir to a family fortune—Roman Sionis, a.k.a. Black Mask (Ewan McGregor, camping and preening, even when his henchman peels off the skins of enemies like they’re apples). Somehow, he strikes so much fear in Harley that she agrees to hunt down the teenage foster-kid pickpocket Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), who has snaked a priceless diamond from him.

Let’s face it. A little of Harley goes a long way, and when a bit of plot finally kicks in, it’s a relief that she gets brought into the orbit of a bigger-than-life posse of other women who’ve been done dirty by guys.

There’s sultry nightclub singer Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell); much-ridiculed veteran detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez); and deadpan, gawky Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, stealing every scene she’s in), who’s an ace with a crossbow. Their action sequences together, all flash and staged to rock anthems, are terrific and exhilarating. But like much of the movie, they’re also self-congratulating and repetitive.

Robbie handpicked talented Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs) to direct the script by Christina Hodson (Bumblebee), which is a super fantastic choice. They lend wonderfully weird touches to the movie, including Harley’s giant pet hyena named Bruce, a tutu-wearing taxidermy beaver, the heroine’s super cool apartment over a Chinese restaurant and a nicely messed-up spin on Marilyn Monroe‘s iconic “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Good stuff.

But come on, how about some genuinely smart, subversive punchlines for these deserving characters? Where’s the brilliant, genuinely original imagery that doesn’t ape Guy Ritchie and Tarantino? Without a genuine sense of danger and drive, the movie’s messages, let alone the character’s fuck-all nihilism and Loony Tunes violence, wear thin fast. But at least Birds of Prey runs less than two hours and is a cheap, fast, irreverent spit in the eye to the pomposity of the overblown superhero genre. With so much potential on view, we’re guessing—and hoping—that this one’s just foreplay for a far better sequel to come.