'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' Makes a Man Out of Snow
The new 'Hunger Games' prequel movie brings a familiar character back to the big screen.
By Saya Fujii
The new 'Hunger Games' prequel movie brings a familiar character back to the big screen.
By Saya Fujii
For every Katniss Everdeen, there is also a President Snow with a backstory, however redeemable or unredeemable it may be. The new prequel movie centering on Snow gave hungry fans of the franchise exactly what they were looking for.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” turns the spotlight away from the girl on fire and shines it towards a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth). The film takes place 65 years before the events of the first “Hunger Games” movie, centering on the 10th annual Hunger Games where mentoring is first introduced. Snow becomes a mentor trying to climb up the ranks when he is paired with District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) with whom he develops a complicated romance.
Just from watching the trailer alone, I knew that this was going to be a phenomenal watch. Like I expected, the cast was pretty much perfect and the sets were a spectacle that matched the feeling of the film as well as the timeline. What I did not expect however, was for the pacing and writing to also go hand in hand with the beauty of the rest of the movie. The cadence of the film was balanced and nothing felt rushed or slow, making good use of the somewhat lengthy two hours and 38 minutes runtime.
I am glad I got to experience this movie twice in theaters because visually it was amazing. The sets had so much detail, like the buildings in the background being in the process of construction as a result of the rebellion in the “Dark Days” 10 years prior. The background sets in general and the colors worked together to set the “Hunger Games” tone that brought us back to the original series. I really liked how Snow and the Capitol people wore red, separating them from the ones in the districts who wore more muted colors. The costume design was outstanding, and all of the little details really brought it all together.
Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul and Peter Dinklage as Dean Casca Highbottom were great choices, extending the strong casting beyond just the main two characters. I would’ve liked to see more of them because Dr. Gaul’s dynamic with Snow is interesting and we only got a taste of Highbottom’s story. Davis accurately portrayed her character as powerful and unhinged, which ultimately leads to her influence on Snow and the man he becomes later on. Snow himself in this movie is exactly what I imagined him to be, thanks to the mix of tremendous acting as well as plenty of thought being put into writing him. Throughout the movie, he is a character that you can be sympathetic towards, and almost makes you forget about all the pain he caused in the original series. But as the film begins to reach its close, the character we have followed all along starts to look all too familiar to the man who haunted Katniss Everdeen.
A gripe I have about the four original “Hunger Games” movies is that it used way too much shaky cam in order to show more bloody scenes while keeping the PG-13 rating. In “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” there is less blood so they are able to avoid the R-rating while keeping the camera steady, which was nice. They did, however, push that rating and upped the violence level, showing bodies landing on the ground and implying some gruesome actions. I would have liked to see an R-rated “Hunger Games,” but I’m not complaining because this movie had great action sequences without having to rely on gore.
In this mix of epic action, romance and character study, we see the songbird that changed Snow, and the snake that was within him all along.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is now in theaters.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” turns the spotlight away from the girl on fire and shines it towards a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth). The film takes place 65 years before the events of the first “Hunger Games” movie, centering on the 10th annual Hunger Games where mentoring is first introduced. Snow becomes a mentor trying to climb up the ranks when he is paired with District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) with whom he develops a complicated romance.
Just from watching the trailer alone, I knew that this was going to be a phenomenal watch. Like I expected, the cast was pretty much perfect and the sets were a spectacle that matched the feeling of the film as well as the timeline. What I did not expect however, was for the pacing and writing to also go hand in hand with the beauty of the rest of the movie. The cadence of the film was balanced and nothing felt rushed or slow, making good use of the somewhat lengthy two hours and 38 minutes runtime.
I am glad I got to experience this movie twice in theaters because visually it was amazing. The sets had so much detail, like the buildings in the background being in the process of construction as a result of the rebellion in the “Dark Days” 10 years prior. The background sets in general and the colors worked together to set the “Hunger Games” tone that brought us back to the original series. I really liked how Snow and the Capitol people wore red, separating them from the ones in the districts who wore more muted colors. The costume design was outstanding, and all of the little details really brought it all together.
Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul and Peter Dinklage as Dean Casca Highbottom were great choices, extending the strong casting beyond just the main two characters. I would’ve liked to see more of them because Dr. Gaul’s dynamic with Snow is interesting and we only got a taste of Highbottom’s story. Davis accurately portrayed her character as powerful and unhinged, which ultimately leads to her influence on Snow and the man he becomes later on. Snow himself in this movie is exactly what I imagined him to be, thanks to the mix of tremendous acting as well as plenty of thought being put into writing him. Throughout the movie, he is a character that you can be sympathetic towards, and almost makes you forget about all the pain he caused in the original series. But as the film begins to reach its close, the character we have followed all along starts to look all too familiar to the man who haunted Katniss Everdeen.
A gripe I have about the four original “Hunger Games” movies is that it used way too much shaky cam in order to show more bloody scenes while keeping the PG-13 rating. In “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” there is less blood so they are able to avoid the R-rating while keeping the camera steady, which was nice. They did, however, push that rating and upped the violence level, showing bodies landing on the ground and implying some gruesome actions. I would have liked to see an R-rated “Hunger Games,” but I’m not complaining because this movie had great action sequences without having to rely on gore.
In this mix of epic action, romance and character study, we see the songbird that changed Snow, and the snake that was within him all along.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is now in theaters.