The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes (Subtitled) (12A)

More than 60 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, the young Coriolanus Snow seeks to restore his family's tarnished name by agreeing to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from District 12. She captivates the post-war Capitol and Snow glimpses an opportunity to exploit her burgeoning popularity for personal gain.

LondonNet Film Review

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

The origins of evil are rooted in love in a polished dystopian fantasy set 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute and became a reluctant totem of rebellion. Adapted from Suzanne Collins’ 2020 novel by screenwriters Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes careens towards an emotional tipping point where teenage Coriolanus Snow recalibrates his moral compass so the odds are forever in his favour. We feel connected to the president-to-be through Tom Blyth’s compelling performance. He permits us to glimpse dark, poisonous ambition percolating beneath the character’s facade and we root for Snow, naively wishing he might elude a Machiavellian destiny etched in blood in the timeline…

Throughout the series, Snow frequently wears a white rose in his lapel. The origins of this obsession with a flower that typically symbolises innocence and purity are explained, deepening our understanding of a man predisposed to tenderness or iron-fisted tyranny. Costume designer Trish Summerville leans into a 1950s aesthetic with futuristic flourishes and her wildly imaginative couture elevates Oscar winner Viola Davis’s embodiment of a dangerously mad scientist. Action sequences in a claustrophobic games arena are confidently staged using practical filmmaking techniques where possible rather than relying on green screen or digital trickery. In one particularly tense set-piece, members of the Capitol sneak into the arena and risk adding their names to the rapidly rising body count.

The calm before the storm of the 10th Hunger Games marks a critical juncture in the regeneration of post-war Panem. Interest is waning in a barbaric spectacle created by Snow’s late father Crassus and Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage). Powerbrokers in the Capitol place their trust in head gamesmaker Dr Volumnia Gaul (Davis) to repackage bloodshed as thrilling mainstream entertainment. Weatherman Lucretius Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman), who boasts amateur magician on his resume, is hired as host and graduating students of the Capitol’s elite Academy are assigned to mentor the Tributes.

Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus (Blyth) intends to drag his Grandma’am (Fionnula Flanagan) and cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) out of the slavering jaws of poverty by shepherding Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler) from District 12 through the Games. She captivates the Capitol but survival in Panem demands conformity and Snow makes agonising choices that set him on the path to damnation.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes is the longest chapter of the franchise, exceeding The Hunger Games: Catching Fire also helmed by Lawrence by more than 15 minutes. Scenes of brutality sometimes shy away from explicitly depicting violence on screen to secure a 12A certificate but the prequel is dark and disturbing nonetheless. There are no noticeable lulls. If anything, Snow’s inevitable descent into darkness feels rushed in the final third. Just as this edition of the Games is catching fire, it’s over.

– Jo Planter