Mini Film Review – The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes

I have just seen The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes; and it was pretty good! Directed by Francis Lawrence, and starring Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, and Viola Davis, and based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins; The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a prequel set 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games, and shows how Coriolanus Snow went from a seemingly good person, into one day becoming the tyrannical president of Panem. The film is nicely broken down into three chapters, each one highlighting a section of Snow’s younger life. Now it is important to note that rather than telling a biographical piece about his rise to power, the story is grounded into a small window, and is more of the turning points in his mental state. We see him as a good person, who tries his best to help someone he discovers, but then ultimately turns on his good nature. The film’s breakdown of chapters does help, but leaves you wondering if the third chapter is entirely necessary. The ending of the second chapter reaches an adrenaline high, only for it to come crashing down, and proceed along this quiet dull path, which feels like the ending to Dune, in that you don’t know when or where it’s going to end! And while the ambiguity behind it can be a good thing to shock you, in the end it just feels like your watching an entirely different film. And as for the final ending, it doesn’t really highlight anything, or even make it clear as to how or why he does go bad. It’s like watching Anakin Skywalker‘s turn to the Dark Side in Revenge of the Sith; it looks so easy to do, like it’s just a simple decision to become bad, not because of a traumatic event or major reason, Snow just goes bad, and that’s it. It may seem weird to be saying this film is good, but then rant on the confusing ending, but pretty much everything leading up to the final chapter, is good! It’s like watching the first Hunger Games all over again, but instead focussing on the game makers rather than the tributes. The shot of adrenaline in the action packed scenes is well done, and the characters are so well designed and developed; it’s just this final chapter sort of brings it down, and drags it through the mud, when instead they should have just finished it after the second chapter, and maybe did another film after it to have a more in depth covering as to how Snow becomes President Snow!