The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Review

The successful Hunger Games film franchise, based on the book franchise of the same name by Suzanne Collins was the most recent massive YA franchise, taking the baton from the Twilight franchise. Bowing out in 2015, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Lionsgate would want to keep tapping into that franchise and they got the chance with the release of Collins’ fourth book in the ‘Hunger Games’ franchise, a prequel to the original ‘Hunger Games’ centered around an eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow entitled ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.’ As a result, cue The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes a film where audiences are seamlessly brought back into the world of Panem. When it comes to any film adaptation, those familiar with the source material will have the inside track with this film and its story. Meanwhile, being a prequel, the ultimate goal is to get the story and characters to where audiences and readers already more or less know they will go. Though an easy task on paper, it is considerably more elaborate to execute. Boasting the longest running time in the franchise so far, clocking in at 157 minutes, it has quite a long runway to utilize. However, it fails to do so in a way that feels both too slow and rushed.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is centered around a young Coriolanus Snow (Blyth) who is forced to repair his family’s image following its fall from grace. The fate of the ambitious and driven Snow appeared to rest in the hands of Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the female tribute from District 12 for the tenth annual edition of The Hunger Games. Tasked to mentor her in the next games, his initial reluctance wore away as he saw an opportunity to improve both of their fates. Oozing charisma and charm, Snow saw something that he could leverage in his favor by making the games into more of a spectacle where she would be front and center. Trying to create more of a connection between viewers and the tributes, getting viewers to care about the tributes on a more human level would increase engagement in the games by adding a higher level of stakes and tension. Putting he and his family’s entire livelihood on the line, Snow’s strategy proved to be successful but that was only one part of the story. The point of the film was to establish his arc from the person he was to the person he became.

Snow’s arc over the course of the film was an internal roller coaster as he found himself battling his instincts (hence the film subtitle) in a way that comes off as erratic thanks to the writing. Driven by ambition and a determination to repair his tarnished family name, there was something different about Lucy Gray as that drive was seemingly put on the backburner but as far as he was concerned, one can’t tell for sure as far as his true intentions were concerned. A behind-the-scenes perspective on the Hunger Games and the Capitol itself, the film delivers a different tone in what essentially was Snow’s coming-of-age story on top of a de facto Hunger Games prequel. Doing a decent job at setting up the pieces needed to bring that story to life, it does a poor job at putting them all together as a means to advance the story, keeping audiences at arm’s length. One of those pieces is Lucy Gray herself. A dynamic character in her own right, it would have been nice to see her stand out on her own rather than as a plot device in Snow’s story. Keeping the film from his perspective, she gets shortchanged despite being the more compelling of the two main characters.

It wouldn’t be a Hunger Games film without a Hunger Games and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was no different. While this one may look a little different, as it hadn’t developed to the point that most audiences are used to, and muted in comparison to the other films, it still brought thrills and tension as Lucy Gray found herself dropped into a hornet’s nest and had to survive under the watchful eye of Snow. Though her newfound notoriety made her a target, the final outcome was never in doubt. The film could have ended there but this was merely another test for Snow as an out of right field third act epilogue that both adds to its already overlong running time and muddies up the waters even more. That being said, an argument could be made about how it stays true to the source material, the film also attempts to pack a lot in there, putting all its chips on Snow instead of delivering a more concise and well-rounded story that could have achieved the same impact.

Putting all its chips on Snow, the fate of the film, for the most part, rested on Blyth’s shoulders. He has the look and the charm but his range couldn’t handle Snow’s complex character arc across the film that saw him become the character audiences have come accustomed to. Using the pieces around him to establish emotional stakes, Blyth had to balance a gamut of conflicting emotions in a way that comes off as erratic and rushed. Be it his family and friends, the ethically flexible characters at the Capitol University, or Lucy Gray, these pieces failed to be compelling in any way, with the exception of Lucy Gray. Therefore, that connection wasn’t there. Zegler, on the other hand, dazzles as Lucy Gray. Delivering the songbird half of the title, she puts her tremendous voice to use while she masterfully commands the screen. Her energy, as a counterbalance to Snow, make for a decent dynamic to follow. However, their chemistry isn’t quite there as the two characters don’t necessarily fit well with one another.

At the end of the day, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will more than hit the spot with fans of the Hunger Games franchise but ultimately crumbles under its own weight.

still courtesy of Lionsgate

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.