Movie Review: ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes’

Eight years after witnessing the end of President Coriolanus Snow’s story in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, we now get to see the beginning of his story and his rise to power in the prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The movie is an epic journey that is somehow both too long and too short with an interesting narrative about the origins of the Hunger Games spectacle that we saw in the original tetralogy. It is dramatic and thought-provoking and almost borders on being a musical with lovely music sung by one of the main characters (Lucy Gray, whose name kept making me think of Macy Gray) throughout the two-and-a-half-hour movie.

As the film begins, after a brief look at the war-torn Capital, we meet Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) as a hardworking teenager about to graduate hoping to win a prestigious prize that will return his remaining family to their luxury status that was decimated during the war. However, due to the declining ratings of the Hunger Games, it has been decided that the top students will take on one more challenge as mentors for the tributes of the Tenth Hunger Games. The previous Games apparently did not have mentors, high production values, or seemingly any build up or reality show theatrics like a host or tribute profiles. Coriolanus is assigned Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), not surprisingly, the female tribute from District 12; one of many nods to the original films. In his effort to get Lucy Gray to trust him so he can win, Coriolanus and Lucy Gray begin to develop a romantic relationship.

It would be tough to discuss the plot further without spoiling some twists and turns. I will say this movie a definitely about Coriolanus and, to a lesser extent, Lucy Gray and his classmate and best friend Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera). Practically everyone else is only thinly developed. We only get to see a handful of the other tributes and mentors. This may sound like a complaint, but if we had more time with all the characters that cross the main storylines, it would either detract from the main storylines or would add to the 2.5-hour runtime. Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, and Viola Davis are great in their roles, regardless of how well they are developed. And, as a Doctor Who fan, I was delighted to see Burn Gorman (Owen Harper from DW spin-off Torchwood) in the second half of the movie.

The story as it stands is interesting and largely entertaining. It has drama, suspense, some comic relief (most notably with Jason Swartzman’s Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman), and gives some insight into the development of the Hunger Games (the in-universe Games, not the original movies). The suspense is limited due to the nature of prequels; spoiler, anytime it looks like future President Snow might die in his teen years, he doesn’t (though he is the main character of this film, so even with no knowledge of the other movies, this probably wouldn’t be a surprise). Those scenes do give more insight into his character and other characters not seen in the previous movies could go at any time (many do).

I applaud the production for not trying to split this into (at least) two movies. On screen title cards split the movie into three parts and I think they could have easily made the third part into a separate movie. With as long as the movie is, the ending still feels a bit rushed, with Snow’s personality shifting drastically in the final moments from what we had largely seen in the latter half of this movie to more like what we saw in the previous movies. Also, the fate of certain characters is left up in the air; though, from what I have read, the book leaves the same loose thread(s).