The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is the highly anticipated prequel to the successful trilogy, released from 2012- 2015.
It had been eight years since the final installment of the movie franchise, and was it worth the wait? Kind of.
The 2023 adaptation starred Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird from District 12, Tom Blyth as President Snow, and Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow.
Although the film franchise is notorious for having longer films, usually around two and a half hours, the first films based on the books seemed to fly by.
However, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes seemed to drag on once the games had concluded.
There was a whole other section of the movie that explored Lucy and President Snow’s possible romantic relationship, and President Snow had been painted as the good guy, despite his reputation in the original films.
It seemed that the writers of this newest film had no time at all to switch President Snow’s good boy, likable character to a bad person, as he is much more well known for.
This felt rushed, not to mention the random betrayal from Lucy towards the end of the film, which I don’t believe the film makers hinted to at all.
Despite all this, the movie was still very reminiscent of previous films, giving a dystopian feel, with great costumes, dark characters and themes, and seemed to highlight better than the other films, why the districts have the games.
The film also showed the hunger games more from the lens of the capitol, rather than the districts, however did show how badly the districts were treated in the beginning of the hunger games.
Overall, it was an enjoyable movie, especially if you are a fan of the original films, however the ending could have been executed better.
