The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is the fifth movie in the Hunger Games franchise and is the best thus far. The film follows a young Cornelious Snow, later President Snow, as he aids Lucy Gray Baird, a District 12 representative, in winning the tenth annual hunger games.
The acting in this film is incredibly well done, with Rachel Zegler’s Lucy Gray and, of course, Tom Blyth’s Snow being phenomenal. Both seemed to have their own intense gravity in the role, and it is no small part of why this movie was great.
The set design is another huge standout. They managed to capture not only the crudeness of the first few Hunger Games incredibly well, with a barren, gladiatorial arena, but also recapture the energy of places like District 12 which we have seen before. It manages to combine both the feeling of the original films of “Vaguely in the future, but also not futuristic” and this film’s setting of “a world still recovering from war” through its set pieces in a way that is intriguing to watch and see captured on screen.
This film is also long, coming in around two hours and 40 minutes, but honestly it did not feel the runtime at all. The writing is tight enough to keep you enamored, and watching Snow slowly get consumed by his one goal of “restoring his family’s legacy” is captivating. Every character is fun to watch, from Peter Dinklage as the eternally drunk Dean Casca Highbottom or Viola Davis as the sadistic ‘Master of the Games.’ There was not any wasted space or time throughout the film.
This film is easily recommendable to anyone, especially anyone who likes the Hunger Games.
Rating: 10/10
