Much how Twilight led to the rise of vampire and fan fiction movies, so too did The Hunger Games with films about teenagers fighting for survival and against the dystopian establishment. While this tale is nothing new (the original was heavily influenced by Battle Royale), they were enjoyable in their own right and concluded with a satisfying, if depressing, ending. In a case of, “because nobody demanded it,” we find ourselves years later returning to Panem in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes to tell the true origins of the games as well as the rise of President Snow, and while there is a lot of content, the same can’t be said about any kind of substance.
Taking place decades before the first film, Songbirds & Snakes introduces us to a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) who, along with his academy classmates, is given the opportunity to mentor a tribute from the districts to fight in the 10th annual hunger games. He takes Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) from District 12 under his wing and begins to introduce themes and ideas that would become commonplace in the games to come. This brings him under the watchful eye of Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) who sees a “bright” future in him but also notices his underlying weaknesses as he begins to truly develop feelings for his tribute. In the face of this, Snow will need to figure out how much he is willing to sacrifice or betray when given the choice between love and his ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps and regain the power his family has lost.
The biggest problem any prequel has is that we know the outcome of the story. There is no surprise in how this ends because Snow and his fate have been sealed and established in the previous movies, so the brunt of the storytelling has to focus on the journey and not the destination. And like most prequels, it can’t follow through on its promise to keep things interesting.
Snow is a fairly bland character which makes it difficult to try to root for him even as an antihero. The same can be said for Lucy Gray who feels like a watered-down version of Katniss, and Rachel Zegler just can’t exude the power and grace that Jennifer Lawrence did. One could say it’s not fair to compare the two, but when your series focuses on strong and dynamic characters, everyone needs to carry that same gravitas, or none of it works.
Speaking of what else doesn’t work is Snow’s decent to the dark side. He continually wavers from good to (slightly) bad throughout the film, but it feels more like he is drunk and trying to walk a straight line than desperately inching across a tightrope knowing that the slightest misstep will send him tumbling into depravity. When he finally takes the plunge, he does so half-heartedly until the final moment where he makes a decision he can’t take back, but by that point, we’ve lost interest in the story and him and just want it to be over.
The one bright point is Viola Davis who is having the time of her life as the gamemaker and absolutely owns every scene she is in. But then, this is to be expected as she is nearly flawless in everything she does, and I actually wish they would do future stories about her as it would be as interesting as this one was not.
There is nothing worse than rooting for a movie only to have your spirits crushed. Despite some missteps, I enjoy The Hunger Games tetralogy and had muted hopes for this one, but even those low expectations didn’t pay off. With a two-and-a-half-hour runtime, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes manages to feel incomplete despite how much it tries to throw at the screen to impress you. I wish I had better things to say about it, but It’s dull, unimaginative, and comes across as a cash grab rather than a story its creators wanted to tell.