An outstanding prequel to an already amazing movie franchise, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” was a thrilling and action-packed film that brought us all back to the beautiful world of Panem.
I have been a fan of “The Hunger Games” movies since they first debuted in 2012 and the latest book-to-movie adaptation did not disappoint. “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” follows Lucy Gray Baird and the young president, Coriolanus Snow and the creation of what the Hunger Games came to be.
In “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” the games are lacking in viewership, so the leaders at the capital come up with ideas to get more people invested. One way to do this was to bring in mentors to the tributes. This rolls into what we’ve already seen in the previous Hunger Games films.
After implementing the mentors into the games, Coriolanus Snow presented the idea to make each tribute a spectacle and to perform for the audience to donate to the tribute they like the most. This idea would launch a whole new concept of the Hunger Games that would last for generations.
For those that don’t know, Coriolanus Snow is the president of Panem in the first Hunger Games film all the way through the end of the franchise. In the new film, it shows Snow in his younger years and how he wasn’t always the villain that he was portrayed to be in the older films.
I liked seeing the different side of Snow and seeing how his character developed throughout the film from being a charming and likable boy to a ruthless and cunning antihero. In all honesty, it was difficult to view him as the bad guy that he was portrayed to be because of all he went through.
As for the other main character, Lucy Gray Baird was one of the Hunger Games tributes from District 12. I really enjoyed Lucy’s character throughout the film. She was likable, relatable and musically talented.
I really enjoyed every aspect of this film, ranging from all the new characters that played a big part in transforming Snow to seeing how the games were created. I also liked seeing Panem in the building stages after the war.
One of the things I didn’t like about the movie was how long the film was. The movie was almost three hours long. It could probably have been cut down a bit and the story would have still made sense. The second thing I didn’t like about the film was the buildup of the relationships between Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray. While there was a bit of a love story between the two, there was a lot more buildup of the relationship rather than seeing the actual relationship.
Overall, this movie was definitely worth the watch and added some context to “The Hunger Games” franchise. The world and the characters were well-developed and designed, making the audience connect to them. There were quite a few easter eggs that linked the new film to the older ones, giving us more background into the history of Panem and The Hunger Games.
