Can Kids Watch Birds of Prey?

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) hits theaters this weekend, packing an R-rating which might bar a few potential younger moviegoers from heading to the theaters. For parents looking for a ruling on whether or not the movie is suitable for kids, they need not look further than the MPAA rating which suggests any moviegoers must be 17 years old or older. For parents looking to decide whether or not they want to bring their kids to the theater or get tickets for them, some details of the content in the movie might help make that decision.

Warning: Mild spoilers for Birds of Prey follow.

Birds of Prey opens on a viscerally violent sequence featuring its villain. Some of the violence is left off screen for the imagination to fill in the blanks but a brutal sequence leads the movie, ultimately serving as the most intensely violent beat in its running time. Throughout the film, a few sequences offer violent beats in the vein of a John Wick movie.

Strong language is present throughout the movie as the main characters often sling the F-word around, along with other choice words. The film does not have much, if any, hyper sexual content. There are also moments of drug use in the film. It can be compared to Deadpool, in terms of tone, save for the Marvel movie’s sexual montage. With that information, most of which is given through the MPAA’s R-rating, parents can make their decision on whether or not to permit kids to watch Birds of Prey.

“I did feel like I had to censor myself a lot, obviously, to suit a PG rating,” Harley Quinn actress Margot Robbie told ComicBook.com on the Birds of Prey set, comparing her experience to that of the PG-13 Suicide Squad. “And a lot of the characters that exist in the DC world, to be honest, are quite dark. And a lot of them, Huntress for example, have serious childhood trauma, have serious mental illnesses, like Harley, whatever, but I felt like we never… Sometimes you can’t really go as deep with those things if you have to censor yourself. And I thought, wouldn’t it be liberating if we didn’t have to worry about that and really go for it, and then later, in the edit, kind of find where the tone of movie lies.”

Birds of Prey is now playing in theaters.