I missed the actual book launch of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” since it came out during the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic and thought that seeing the movie might be somewhat decent.
Unfortunately, the film’s storyline felt too rushed and didn’t delve enough into the main characters – and I only found that out when I felt the need for more information to understand things better.
That being said, the film is visually stunning and acts as an overall fairly decent prequel to the original “The Hunger Games” franchise.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an American dystopian action film directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt.
Based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, it serves as a prequel to 2012’s “The Hunger Games” film and is the fifth installment in total The Hunger Games film series.
The film stars Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Isobel Jones, Lilly Cooper, Ashley Liao, Aamer Husain, and Viola Davis.
It’s rated PG-13 for strong violent content and disturbing material and clocks in at 157 minutes long.
In Panem, following the First Rebellion between the Capitol and the Districts, young Coriolanus Snow and his cousin Tigris forage for food amidst the war-torn landscape.
Thirteen years later, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus (Blyth) is one of twenty-four Capitol Academy students selected to mentor a tribute in the 10th Annual Hunger Games.
Coriolanus determines to restore his family's prosperity by earning the Plinth Prize scholarship.
Games creator and Academy Dean Casca Highbottom (Dinklage) advises mentors to focus on entertaining viewers rather than tributes winning the Games.
Coriolanus is assigned to mentor District 12 female tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler).
During the reaping ceremony, she charms Capitol viewers by singing and slipping a snake into Mayor Lipp's cruel daughter Mayfair's (Jones) dress.
While fellow mentor Arachne Crane (Cooper) taunts her tribute, who then kills her, Coriolanus earns Lucy Gray's trust by riding with her to the Capitol Zoo.
He further helps her win Capitol citizens' sympathy, much to Highbottom's displeasure, as he paired Coriolanus with a District 12 tribute so he would fail.
Coriolanus proposes a sponsorship scheme to Head Gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Davis) where Capitol viewers donate supplies to tributes via their mentors during the Games to increase viewership of the games.
Coriolanus' classmate, Clemensia Dovecote (Liao) tries to take the credit for the idea since she’s Snow’s class partner for projects but made no contributions of her own.
Gaul places the proposal document into a tank of genetically modified snakes that do not attack familiar scents then has Clemensia retrieve it.
Not recognizing Clemensia's scent, the snakes critically wound her - confirming it was Coriolanus' proposal.
During a Games-arena tour, a rebel bomb explodes, killing the Panem President's son, Felix Ravinstill (Husain), and some tributes.
When Lucy Gray saves Coriolanus from falling debris, he gifts her with rat poison to use as a weapon.
The games begin with several tributes dying in the initial bloodbath and it only gets worse from there.
I won’t give anything away, but if you’ve seen the original Hunger Games flicks, you know how this ends for Snow anyway.
That being said, if you’re an overall fan of the series then this is worth watching on the big screen – if not, you aren’t missing a lot.
