The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes review – A Bridge Too Short Between Choruses

I’m not going to lie, The Hunger Games was not something I was expecting to see or hear from again. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense. The movie adaptations of Suzanne Collin’s Young Adult dystopian novels were a landmark moment, and like the books, set a trend in their entertainment medium. They paved the way for the likes of other YA franchises like Divergent and The Maze Runner and, arguably, were the most high-profile and critically acclaimed of the bunch. This remains true even though many of us had tuned out by the time Mockingjay – Part 2 reached cinemas, with the consensus that the third book should have been one film instead of two.

Where The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, an adaptation of Collin’s spin-off prequel, succeeds is in how it evolves beyond the tropes and storytelling that defined the last four movies – and, let’s be real, an entire genre. Where The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes fails is when it can’t get us to care about its story. The result is a movie that is enjoyable, colourful, and interesting… up to a point.

The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is set ten years after the civil war that split the country of Panem into the Capitol and twelve districts. Interest in the Hunger Games – an annual event where 24 children from the districts are dropped into an arena to fight to the death – is starting to wane. As a means to reinvigorate viewership of the televised show, young academy student Coriolanus Snow (played by Tom Blythe) and his peers are assigned as mentors to the district’s “Tributes”, with Snow’s assigned Tribute being Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a flamboyant and blatantly defiant folk singer from District 12.

Under the guidance of Head Gamemaker Dr Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) and the scrutiny of the Games’ creator Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), Snow sets out to turn Lucy Gray into a leading lady of the Hunger Games. But the Games are just the beginning for Coriolanus, as he not only works to ensure his Tribute’s survival, but also reinvigorate his family fortune and set himself up for political success. His path, as fans know from the original Hunger Games films, will end with him becoming the cold, ruthless leader of the future, played by Donald Sutherland.

Right out the gate, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes ropes audiences in with a delicious premise. In a post-war society that is still rebuilding and sweeping aside the rubble, child murder is turned into entertainment. What was conceived as a means to punish the districts for their defiance every year is purposefully transformed into a spectacle to increase ratings. It’s a fabulous hook, one that allows for a variety of characterisation as each person has to confront their personal relationship with the Hunger Games – which are in the bizarre and distasteful position of encouraging dehumanisation, but also emotional investment.

Invigorating proceedings from the get go is Zegler, who shines throughout the movie and serves as a striking contrast to Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen from the previous films. Whereas Katniss was a killing machine with minimal people skills, Lucy Gray Baird is a performer, the ideal candidate for what the powers of Panem want the Hunger Games to embody going forward. Zegler leaps into that with excellent singing skills to boot.

The rest of the A-list cast don’t disappoint either. Viola Davis is downright unhinged, and massively entertaining, clearly relishing her role as a scientist whose nature-defying creations showcase the unforgiving depths of the Capitol’s brutality. Jason Schwartzman also shines as Games host Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman – an ancestor of 64th annual Hunger Games host Caesar – and he is an absolute riot on screen, delivering absurdist comedy which goes a long way to highlight how dismissive his audience is towards the cruelty of the Games.

The film is also stunning to look at. Francis Lawrence reassumes directing duties, having directed every Hunger Games movie sans the first, and he has brought back with him cinematographer Jo Willems to depict a Panem that is both young and old in its construction. The striking colours and technological marvels of the original trilogy – which is set six decades after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, for the record – are replaced by grey skies and crumbling art deco architecture to convey a city ravaged by conflict. Also returning is composer James Newton Howard, who provides a score that leans into the epicness of the tale, while also throwing in some timely musical references to the earlier films.

All this said, The Ballad of Songbird & Snakes inconsistently hits its high notes. While the cast as a whole deserves praise, the same cannot be said for leading man Tom Blythe. Blythe fails to embody the complexities of a character like Coriolanus Snow, especially since we’re starting out with a version of him that isn’t as simple as what Blythe portrays him to be. You do not grow up during a cataclysmic war, scrambling for scraps on the street, and come out the other side as an idealist. Snow’s tragic reckoning also happens too late in the runtime and too suddenly, which has the nasty side effect of making his feelings towards Lucy Gray come across as less believable. For her, and the audience.

Along with the pacing issues, the film is way too long at 157 minutes. This isn’t a new problem to the franchise, but it is very apparent here due to a stark split between an electric first half, and less interesting second part. You really start to feel the length and are presented relatively early with a pivotal scene that would have best served as the movie’s actual finale. One cannot argue this story would’ve been better if it were split into two parts like Mockingjay, but there is a case to be made for making the tragic tale of Coriolanus Snow less rigidly structured in exchange for a better overall product.

Still, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes deserves credit for how it successfully distances itself from being a mindless cash grab based on a well-established property. There is a distinct story told here, delving into the Games in their proto state, and the things that drew us to the Hunger Games in the first place are still present, but reshaded and reangled. Delivered with excellent production design and noteworthy talent both in front of and behind the camera, who cares about feelings when at the end of the day ratings are all that matter? 

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is in cinemas now, having released on Friday, 17 November.