Blockbusting out: Hunger Games prequel reviewed
Moving Pictures By Mo Burford
Thanksgiving Movie Blockbusters are rolling out and I could not wait to jump in on a big new release, since i loved the original series so much. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is a prequel to the massively successful Hunger Games series first released in 2012, which itself was based on the book series by Suzanne Collins.
Now, I am a pretty big fan of The Hunger Games films. I rewatched them in preparation for the release of the new film, and have probably watched them all at least two or three times before now. I still find them both exciting and extremely grim, which seems at odds with the current filmic landscape, but in 2012 it made perfect sense to make a dystopian action film for teens that is as dark as the day is long. The films center around a series of annual “games” where children are taken from their homes and forced to kill one another, all of which is televised both for entertainment and to reinforce the capital’s control (and oh how the two are connected!).
The original films thread a very small needle that balances the tension between making a crowd-pleasing blockbuster while still asking big, philosophical questions about power, violence, trauma, and the complicity of individuals within systems outside their control. That’s a long way of saying: the movies are excellent, and I like them very much.
Coriolanus and Lucy’s paths intersect when Coriolanus is tasked with being her mentor for this year’s games.
So I was understandably quite excited for this fall’s return to the world of Panem in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The prequel focuses on Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), the future villainous President Snow of the original Hunger Games series, as a young man, following the events that lead to his “breaking bad.” At the same time, we also follow Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler of West Side Story fame), a young singer from District 12 who is conscripted to compete in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Coriolanus and Lucy’s paths intersect when Coriolanus is tasked with being her mentor for this year’s games. As their relationship grows, Coriolanus is forced to decide with whom his loyalties lie.
The film is much of what might be expected from a Hunger Games movie (at least for the first two acts it is), and I can honestly say that I enjoyed much of it. When the film is really working, it is thrilling and sad and even genuinely moving. The acting in the film was also unexpectedly good, especially from some of the smaller roles, like Viola Davis’s hugely arch performance as the Game Master Dr. Volumnia Gaul, and Jason Schwartzman as the hilariously smarmy announcer Lucky Flickerman. And while I think they over-relied on her voice, Rachel Zegler is an amazing singer and performer, and her songs are often hugely affecting in the movie.
Being a prequel, the film also showed us an earlier Capitol and Panem, and as such the clothing and architecture were also meant to be from an earlier time. To this end, the filmmakers chose a 20’s, Art Deco aesthetic that I thought was highly effective and gorgeous to look at.
My big issue with The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes is its pacing: on the one hand, I liked how quickly it moved, not getting bogged down much for a two-and-a-half-hour movie; but on the other hand, many of the central themes in the film, and some of the main characters’ development, felt too rushed to be impactful. As a result, the third act of the film is much more of a mess than it needed to be, and couldn’t ultimately fulfill the film's promise.
But I love this world and the cinematic potential of it, so I forgive any of the film's glaring faults. If you are a fan at all of the original series, I think you too will find something to enjoy in its newest incarnation.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)
★★★
(three stars)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is now playing at Columbia Cinema and Hood River Cinemas.
Questions, comments, movie suggestions? Email Mo at movingpicturesccc@gmail.com
For more reviews and to see his up-to-date movie log, follow Mo at Letterboxd
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