I’ll be the first to admit that “The Hunger Games” franchise isn’t for me. I am only peripherally knowledgable on the series, both their literary and film iterations as the YA craze of teenagers fighting “the man” in a dystopian future missed me. That’s not to say there aren’t flashes of intriguing ideas and world building, and to say I hate YA titles like “The Hunger Games,” “The Maze Runner,” and “Divergent” (to name a few) would be an overstatement. Many entries have strong stand outs, and are entertaining and well crafted enough to keep even an old man like myself engaged for an hour too. So while I’m not the biggest fan of the franchise, I am also not sitting behind a computer vehemently rooting for it to fail.
That being said, “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” falls somewhere in the middle on the unnecessary prequel scale, unable to shed its “this is a prequel” skin and tell us something new inside a world we’ve already spent ample time in. It unfortunately traps itself in these prequel pitfalls, leaving casuals on the outside looking in instead of inviting them to Panem as a participant.

Director Francis Lawrence returns to the franchise after directing “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and both “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1” and “Part Two” to direct “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Written by Michael Arndt (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “Toy Story 3,” “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”) and Michael Lesslie, “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” takes place years before Coriolanus Snow becomes the tyrannical President Snow, and follows his rise to power in his younger years. After a war between The Capitol and the rebellion, the Capitol is technically the victor, but the city is left in ruins. Snow’s family is a casualty of events. After his father is killed in action, Snow’s once wealthy family is left with near nothing and is struggling to survive and restore honor and glory to their name.
Coriolanus has applied himself to his studies in hopes to do this, but is thrust into a new mentorship program for The Hunger Games. With the games losing viewership, Snow is paired with tribute Lucy Gray from district 12, a carefree drifter with a beautiful singing voice. Determined to save her and rise himself, he begins to reshape the games with his ideas and successful implementations. However, there are always snakes in the grass, and powerful people who will stop at nothing to make sure Snow never sees power ever again and his tribute does not make it out of the games alive. The film stars Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schaefer, and Jason Shwartzman.

There’s plenty to enjoy in “Songbirds and Snakes,” and from those who are more familiar with the franchise have said it is one of the better adaptions so far. It is cinematically beautiful, recreating the rubble of Panem and framing gorgeous district landscapes that make the world feel lived in and jaded, at odds with its victory while trying to rebuild and maintain their power and wealth. It does well to create a world in which it would create someone like Snow, and while I don’t believe we should always be looking for ways to sympathize with villains (an exhaustive trope that has permeated nearly every facet of filmmaking…it’s really ok to just let bad guys be bad for bad’s sake) Blyth delivers a layered, nuanced performance of a young man with ideals that clash with the world as it is. He has both darkness and light inside of him, and through his journey you can see why one ends up the victor in the end. Blyth is a perfect baby Snow, channeling the gravitas of Donald Sutherland’s presence through a lens of naivety and ambition. “Songbirds and Snakes” attempts to reframe Snow as a man who wasn’t born bad, he was just made that way.
And it almost works, but can’t escape the stories that come after it to truly stand on its own. I get that prequels aren’t necessarily meant to be their own thing, but outside of a few key performances, this film fails to tell us anything new about the world of Panem or the games themselves. All of the moral issues surrounding the inhumanity of control through violence and death are exactly the same. The games being a spectacle that essentially need to be monetized and defined beyond its true nature are also in the same state at 10 as they are in whatever number Katniss shows up in years later. There are still rebellions, secret plots, betrayals, and disenchanted cogs in the machine who want it all to end despite being active participants in it all. Everything has been done in all of the entries that came before it, leaving this prequel in a limbo of meaninglessness.
If we don’t have anything new to say about “The Hunger Games,” then why are we making more of them? That’s a rhetorical question that has an obvious answer, but “Songbirds and Snakes” is too messy and overwrought to not prompt you to ask it anyway.

The film’s best act are during the games themselves, as the second act really takes flight with some intense, well-paced action sequences and gruesome violence. It is the only time in the film where you feel yourself engaging with and rooting for the characters we’re suppose to. “Songbirds and Snakes” starts off really wonky, thrusting you into a world you should already know well and rushing through its process to get to the games. Then it rushes its conclusion with a whirlwind of convoluted subplots and character arcs that feel more like moving pieces on a chessboard to get us to where “The Hunger Games” pick up instead of actually fleshing out the story at hand. Prequel pitfalls beset this film on all sides, especially in the third act. This paired with its unnecessarily long run time bogs down the pacing despite some engaging visuals and strong performances.
Back to the performances for a second…Rachel Zegler is a star who just can’t seem to find the right project for her talents. Uneven southern drawl aside, Zegler is incredibly charming, and begs us to invest in her and her survival regardless of whether or not we’re truly invested in the story. Viola Davis is deviously delightful, channeling a sort of devlish sorcery around her game making antics. She is eating here, adorned in lavish costumes and haunting prosthetics that make her a truly terrifying character. Sometimes powerhouse drama actors thrive when they can shed their more weighty, demanding roles and just be downright over the top villains. That’s Davis, and while her screen time is limited, she remains one of the more captivating characters in the film.

I’m sure fans of the franchise will find this one a restorative return to greatness, and while it didn’t grab me enough to make me revisit some of those comparative films, “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” can claim itself to be on the better side of entries. Though messy and redundant and certainly too long, it largely achieves most of what it sets out to do, which is to keep the franchise alive by retelling stories that precede the ones we know. I’m just not convinced it is all that necessary, and mining the “Hunger Games” for every single possible dime it can squeeze out of the franchise feels too little too late.
“Songbirds and Snakes” may not be the worst of the franchise, but it is the most unnecessary, and never sheds its prequel connective tissue that bind it to the stories that follow enough to be worth returning to the world this way.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Stars
“The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is now playing in theaters. You can watch the trailer below.