The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes presents an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, any opportunity to venture back into Suzanne Collins’ brilliantly realised world is one to be relished. This is a horrifying dystopia that is interestingly free of anything ordinarily fantastical or sci-fi-esque and therefore has always made surprising ‘sense’, making it all the easier to fall deeply into.

The counterpoint to this is having to follow another prequel plot, arguably unnecessarily giving background to a villain character that is not needed. The fact that this is based on Collins’ only other novel in the series saves this somewhat, but the usual lack of stakes that a prequel brings is sadly present and correct here.

However, the overwhelming winner of these two dichotomies is the first. Spending time back in the scarily prescient and brilliantly realised Panem is quite often enough to transcend this film as an experience above and beyond its faintly predictable and low stakes plot.

It’s testament to returning Director Francis Lawrence and an impeccable cast that, despite the stakes and predictability, this origin story of Coriolanus Snow and his mentoring of District 12 tribute Lucy-Gray in the tenth annual Hunger Games is actually pretty damn invigorating and enthralling.

Certainly, when comparing to its most obvious competitors: the woeful Fantastic Beasts series (for me up there with the worst franchises ever made in large part down to how insultingly poor it is in comparison to HP) and the Star Wars prequels, this story feels of a piece with its core series brethren and retains the core elements of what made those stories so unique and compelling.

It just feels like a properly thought-through and lived in world, the stakes of which are always very clear. It has some call-backs and similar scenes to the original series, but makes some nice change ups and showing us more of the Capitol is an interesting move.

It’s super solid, well made stuff and stands up as a nice little bonus extra if you’re going for a binge watch of the series. The story sags somewhat in the middle, and you feel the hefty runtime, but the fact that they’ve gone big on detail is to be admired. Having said that, the final ‘descent into villainy’ and the supposed cause of this doesn’t feel quite right and seems strangely rushed.

It’ll definitely alienate any non-fans of the series but for those who in any way enjoyed the thrills of The Hunger Games, this is a lovely little surprise.

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