The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a 2023 movie based on the massively successful film and book series, The Hunger Games. This film follows events before the first movie/novel as the tenth annual Hunger Games, a survival competition between children across the 12 districts. But this is the first year they instate the idea of mentors to teach and guide the tributes, something that future villain of the series Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) takes very seriously, attempting to prove himself as a member of the high class capital and teach “The Songbird,” Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), how to survive . . . and just maybe discover what the Hunger Games are really for.
(Spoilers Ahead)
Overall this movie was very good, it has a very distinct style from the original films and a strong storytelling perspective with our unreliable and selfish narrator, Coriolanus Snow. While the movie clocks in at two hours and twenty-eight minutes, I still felt myself wanting more out of this world and story to really develop Snow’s character and his downfall into despair.
Getting negatives out of the way, the movie either moves really fast or really slow. The first two-thirds of the movie moves at such a fast speed that it can be easy to get lost with how much is going on, then the last third is so slow and honestly boring at points. There was also very shallow development given to anyone who isn’t Snow, Lucy, and Sejanus played by Josh Andrés Rivera. Everyone else either stays the same like the characters Casca and Gaul, is very one-note only just to die immediately, or gets lost in the runtime of the film. This especially is noticeable with the Snow’s male tribute, Pliny Harrington, played by Ayomide Adegun, who is on-screen in the film for around 10 minutes before dying from rabies.
But on to positives. The movie is really well made with standout performances from Tom Bylth, Rachel Zegler, and Peter Dinklage. The film is also very outsider friendly to anyone who’s not that huge into the franchise like I am. As long as you understand the basics of The Hunger Games and know who Snow is by the end of the series, you’re good. The actual Hunger Games portion of this film, especially, is very good with a constant back and forth of who has the upper hand and how many lives will Lucy take just to survive, which is a great transition into one of the strongest aspects of the film, how it treats mortality and what the price of success is worth. Snow himself, despite not taking part in the Hunger Games, takes more lives than any tribute, yet is the winner in the end because he had what it took to survive. By the end of the movie, we find out that his father is the one who introduced the Hunger Games, making it a question of if this is destined to happen because of his legacy, or if there’s a choice involved with Snow’s actions. But in the end, regardless of his lineage, he lost it all. He let innocents die, he killed his best friend, he lost the love of his life, all in a pursuit for power and wealth.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes was an excellent film that I enjoyed a lot, regardless of being a fan of the series. I can’t recommend it more to anyone even a bit curious. As long as you don’t mind longer movies moving at different speeds and some underdeveloped characters, this will be a great film for you.
