Coriolanus Snow mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games.

‘The Hunger Games’ was one of the biggest movie series of the 2010s and to a large extent is responsible for making Jennifer Lawrence the star that she is today (it should be noted that she already had an Oscars nomination for ‘Winter’s Bone’ prior to the first Hunger Games movie). This is not another sequel but a prequel, which seems to be the current direction for franchises once their original stories have ran out of fuel. Taking place 64 years prior to the events of ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ is focused entirely on the character of Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland in the original series), who was the President of Panem and the primary antagonist across the four movies. It is always difficult to tell the story of how a bastard became a bastard, while having you sympathetic to them initially, but I found it mostly worked and this movie was a pleasant surprise.

Beginning with an 18-year-old Snow (Tom Blyth), we learn he comes from a formerly wealthy family who are now almost bankrupt following the death of his father, and to maintain the lifestyle his family have became accustomed too, he must earn a highly sought after scholarship by successfully mentoring a new tribute in the 10^th annual Hunger Games. This introduces him to Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) from District 12, a feisty young woman with a beautiful singing voice and a dark side; their relationship will develop from here in ways you may be able to guess. The games itself aren’t quite as exciting as the original movies, partially by design as this is meant to be a time in the past when they were in their infancy, so I think it worked that it only formed part of the movie and not the whole thing, with it being bookended by different spells in Snow’s life that showed how he became the man we know in the main series.

I thought this was a good bit better than I expected with sharper writing than the original series, which spun out of control after the initially very entertaining (if ripped from ‘Battle Royale’) original, perhaps aided by author Suzanne Collins having ample time to fully develop this particular story. It does still have the ridiculous names and several characters feel like they are basically doing versions of those who came before, most notably Jason Schwartzmann in the Stanley Tucci role as the TV host of the games. I liked Tom Blyth, who I haven’t seen much of before, and Rachel Zegler has the beauty and the singing voice that makes it easy to see why this version of Snow would fall for her. I did find myself getting a little confused towards the end and had to do a quick Wikipedia synopsis check afterwards, although that may be as much on me as it is on the screenplay.

I don’t think ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ is going to usher in a new era of success for this series, but as a standalone look into the origins of one of its most memorable characters, I felt this was a pretty enjoyable movie.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Francis Lawrence

Starring: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Josh Andres Rivera, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Fionnula Flanagan and Burn Gorman

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt10545296/