The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes may challenge Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One for the clunky title championship, but unlike the latter series’ diminishing returns, this prequel elevates the saga of Panem to new heights — at least for a while.
Much like Warner Bros. turning to longtime Harry Potter series director David Yates for continuity in its Fantastic Beasts films, the Lionsgate powers that be wisely bring back Francis Lawrence, who’s helmed each Hunger Games installment after the flimsy Gary Ross series-starter.
Though it’s been eight years since Mockingjay — Part 2, Lawrence shows little signs of rust early in the story of teenage Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth, Benediction) long before he became the fascist President Snow (Donald Sutherland) we love to hate. Planting the seeds of his ambition, the script by Michael Lesslie (Macbeth) and Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine; Toy Story 3) — adapting Suzanne Collins’ novel — finds Coriolanus seeking to improve his one-prominent family’s standing by going to university on the money from the Plinth Prize, only to encounter some deliciously dark opposition.
It turns out viewership for The Hunger Games is down, and for its 10th year, Games creator Dean Casca Highbottom (a morose Peter Dinklage) wants to spice things up and encourage showmanship by having academy graduates mentor district tributes. The mentor who produces the most entertaining tribute wins the scholarship money, a challenge that results in a potent combination of behind-the-scenes intrigue and the horrors of the Games themselves.
Such activities also put Coriolanus in the path of Head Gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul, played by Viola Davis in cuckoopants mode. The less said about her ill-fitting, unhinged performance, the better, but more time is wisely spent with Jason Schwartzman’s comic-relief announcer Lucky Flickerman, presumably the father (or at least uncle) of Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman in the latter films.
As its TLDR title suggests, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes serves up a multitude of music, performed by Coriolanus’ District 12 female tribute, Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, West Side Story), a gypsy artist whose people just so happened to be in Appalachia when the uprising was squelched.
Performing songs written by Collins and go-to Nashville producer Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile; Jason Isbell), the musical numbers are frequently an asset, illustrating District residents’ vibrant personal lives — details all but unseen in the other Hunger Games movies — but occasionally come off as forced. Zegler’s voice makes even the cringiest moments palatable, and her winning chemistry with Blyth leads to a significant investment in her wellbeing throughout the Games.
Once the competition ends and action shifts to District 12, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes introduces its most intriguing concepts and conflicts — then promptly bungles them. A hodgepodge of half-baked plans for rebellion, revenge, and romance, the poorly written third act also elicits embarrassing performances from the previously sharp ensemble and brings about multiple incredulous changes of heart.
Nevertheless, the film’s more honest portrayal of the terror and brutality of the Games as well as the aforementioned assets of the first two acts makes it the best of the series thus far.
But that’s still not saying much.
Grade: C-plus. Rated PG-13. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate)
