Coriolanus Snow mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games. Taking place 64 years prior to the events of the first Hunger Games film, this prequel mainly centers around a young Coriolanus Snow and his rise to power in Panem. While I have not read the Hunger Games books, I enjoyed all four of the films from the original series and the very complex world building that each of them brought to the table. Though my anticipation was not exactly super high for this prequel, I must say that there is plenty to like and even love about The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, particularly during its first two acts. Tom Blyth is excellent as a young Coriolanus Snow and adds so much layers to the would be tyrant that we never saw in the original series. Whereas Donald Sutherland embodied the more cold and calculating traits of Snow, Blyth does embody those traits while also humanizing Snow to the point that I almost found myself rooting for him, almost. That said, the film and Blyth’s performance ensure that Snow ultimately is not the protagonist, even if he shows some compassion and empathy towards the tribute he mentors. Speaking of which, Rachel Zegler plays Lucy Gray, the female tribute from District 12 and her character is a lot different from Katniss Everdeen.
Lucy is a singer with showmanship and confidence that she uses to charm the Capitol and win over public opinion. Zegler is mostly good, particularly when it comes to the singing components and her chemistry with Blyth’s Snow, although I found her attempts at a southern accent to be quite distracting at times. Perhaps the two best supporting actors here are Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis. Schwartzman plays Lucky Flickerman (ancestor to Stanley Tucci's Caesar Flickerman), the original host of the Hunger Games and he’s every bit as eccentric, flamboyant, and morally reprehensible as Tucci’s Caesar was, in some cases more so. Schwartzman is a total scene stealer and absolutely chews up the scenery whenever he is on screen. He makes these sort of passive jokes about the tributes as they head towards their impending doom and it adds this sadistic and dark humor I wasn’t expecting. Viola Davis as Head Gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul is another huge standout. She is so effective at being this diabolical mastermind who actually finds it delightful to create these brutal challenges for the tributes and unapologetically thinks of them as mere test subjects.
Another noteworthy supporting actor is Peter Dinklage as the Dean of the Academy Casca Highbottom and there is a lot to love about the different perspectives that are shared between him and his student Snow on how the games should be handled and promoted to best win over the interests of the districts. As for the world building and lore itself, we get to see an earlier more prototype version of the Hunter Games, meaning that some of the elements such as sending tributes food/supplies in the arena are finally put into context.
The movie is broken up into three sections, with chapter titles to announce the start of each segment. The first two chapters is very much the movie that fans will come for. It revolves around the lead up to and the 10th annual Hunger Games tournament itself and has plenty of exciting and tension filled moments that fans are looking for. You got the more mean spirited tributes fighting the weaker participants, Lucy trying to hide with her district’s male tribute, and an impressive sequence involving a genetically modified snake attack. Once this second section of the movie ends, it feels like the film already reached the highest level of excitement, but only for it to be extended by an hour.
The biggest most glaring issue with this movie is that the entire third chapter feels totally like a different movie and the pacing takes a massive hit as a result. After the Hunger Games oriented action is finished, there is another hour of the film with new conflicts, new locations, and a completely different vibe. It was almost as if director Francis Lawrence was forced to smush two separate films into one, because act three could have been the sequel to the first two acts. This jarring structural choice threw me off and the rushed nature of the third act brought the movie down as a whole. I liked seeing how Snow was given the dilemma to fall in love with Lucy and live a poor but happy life or instead be the rich and powerful political figure he was born to be. Unfortunately, as I said, this section is bogged down by choppy pacing that makes the end product a bit less than the sum of its parts.
As expected, the 1940’s yet futuristic style production design is immaculate to look at along with the eye popping costumes of each character. The song related elements of the movie didn’t work for me at first but when they were used during specific moments in the arena, when Lucy is playing guitar at a District 12 bar, or when Lucy sings “Hanging Tree,” it definitely made a lot more sense as a storytelling tool. The ending itself was not fully earned, although its implications do intrigue me for potential further stories about this younger Snow leading up to his eventual tenure as Panem’s tyrannical president. I would say that most fans of the Hunger Games books/movies will mostly enjoy this prequel, while newcomers may be a little lost. Overall, in spite of a jarring third act that throws off the pacing and nearly ruins the film as a whole, Francis Lawrence’s Hunger Games prequel is saved by a strong first two thirds, layered world building/lore, and compelling lead performances from Rachel Zegler and especially Tom Blyth as young Coriolanus Snow.
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