The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The story of Coriolanus Snow, years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem. He is young, very determined and though the Snow family has fallen on hard times, Coriolanus sees a chance for a change in his fortunes when he is chosen to be a mentor for the 10th Hunger Games only to have his elation dashed when he is assigned to mentor a girl tribute named Lucy Gray Baird from the impoverished District 12.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 2, 2025
Turns out Coriolanus and Sejanus….both assholes in the end.
Kudos to the casting director. Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow has the perfect look, and is excellent in all aspects of Snow’s complicated origin story. Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman is 🤌🏼🤌🏼. So funny and has substantially all of the funniest lines of dialogue. Plus, he seriously looks and sounds like a relative of the great Stanley Tucci. Rachel Zegler — —Holy f🤩k, can she sing. I mean we knew this, but still it’s always impressive to see and hear. Peter Dinklage period. End of sentence. But my goodness, Viola Davis is easily my favorite casting as Dr Volumnia Gaul. Sinister and menacing and just completely commands every scene she’s in. Just wish we had more and/or hoping we get more in the next one.
As someone who wasn’t super excited to go back to the Hunger Games Franchise, consider me absolutely sucked back in. I really loved the story told here, so a lot of credit to author Suzanne Collins. Prequels always scare me especially when we’re doing things like turning antagonists into protagonists. I always fear that the new entry is going to essentially undo some of the narrative of the original films. So far, at least, I’m completely riveted by where this story has gone and where it can go from here. And I can see why Lionsgate seems to be pulling out all the stop in promoting this.
On the negative side, film felt longer than it needed to be. After the conclusion of the 10th annual hunger games on a somewhat climactic story beat, the films pacing comes to a screeching halt and takes a bit to get going again. It eventually does, but it’s hard not to feel the pacing drag in that moment.
The film looks and sounds excellent, particularly in IMAX. This is no where near as VFX heavy as the original 4 films. The games themselves essentially take place in a single gladiator style arena and naturally aren’t really cinematically interesting or varied as the “future” hunger games become. I appreciate the narrative consistency of having a more primitive take on the games, but it does make the event itself feel a bit underwhelming. We don’t even really get to know any of the other tributes. So, I would calibrate expectations accordingly.
All in all, I’m very impressed with the story and cast and am excited to see where the future installments take us.