The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, starring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler, follows 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (future President of Panem) as he navigates his way as a mentor for the 10th annual hunger games and his life after the events occurs. This movie is a prequel to the previous novel and film trilogy The Hunger Games, and it is based on the fourth and final book The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes written by Suzanne Collins. 

The movie is broken up into three parts which makes the storyline easy to follow. I personally think that if anyone hasn’t since the original trilogy, it would be beneficial to watch this movie first because it takes place 65 years prior to the other films and novels.  

This movie provides a lot of clarity to things we saw in the original trilogy, like as to why President Snow is as sinister as he is. After watching this movie, so many plot lines from the other movies made a lot more sense. I recommend re-watching the trilogy after seeing this film because it will give you a new point of view that you couldn’t have had before. When I was watching in the theaters, it was like there were dots connecting the stories to each other in my head. 

We first get to see a glimpse of what life was like as a child for Snow, and then the story begins. It starts off by showing Snow attending the reaping with his fellow classmates to receive their mentees. This is when he was assigned to 16-year-old singer, Lucy Gray Baird, a girl from district 12, who he is expected to help win the games.  

The movie then continues by showing the experiences leading up to the games and then takes the audience through the gruesome events of the 10th Hunger Game. After the games are finished, we get to see what happens to Snow as he progresses through his life as a young adult. 

The production of this movie was incredible. It shows how much the Hunger Games have changed from one of the first games to the very last. Since this Hunger Game took place only ten years after the districts tried to rebel against the capitol, it truly shows how badly the tributes were treated then verse now. For example, in this movie the tributes were treated like animals while in the original trilogy they were treated like royals. This movie was one of my favorites. 

When asked about the movie freshman Liam Kenny said that he preferred the movie over the book. He said that “It made it even more conflicting watching snow as you don’t see his inner monologue, so when you know what’s going to happen to him in the future its harder to remember that he is a bad person even there.” He also added that, “It was a lot less awkward during the songs and it added a lot to the atmosphere of the movie.” 

The cinematography really added to the depth of the movie. They used lighting to convey emotions. For example, when scenes were more intense, the lighting was much darker compared to the more fun, relaxed scenes. 

I feel that the cast was perfect for this movie, especially for Lucy Gray. Rachel Zegler did such an amazing job representing her character. Not only was she a great actress, but she is a phenomenal singer, and she made her character so likeable.  

But she isn’t the only one, the actors that played the other tributes portrayed their characters so well that at some points in the film I felt genuinely heartbroken by what was happening to them as if it were real. 

I can see this movie winning many awards not only from the production, but from the soundtrack as well. My favorites were Can’t Catch Me Now by Oliva Rodrigo, and The Balled of Lucy Gray Baird by Rachel Zegler. 

While I thought the movie was great, not everyone felt so enthusiastic about it. The movie has a 64% Tomatometer score and an 89% audience score. A common complaint was that the movie felt rushed and that there were a lot of details missing which made it hard to keep up with the plot. 

When asked about how she felt about the movie, freshman Juliana Dacunha said, “I felt lost on some parts because the movie didn’t give a lot of context, but other than that the movie really grabbed my attention.” 

Another thing that the audience felt was that the books gave a better insight into the characters and the storyline.  Since the movie didn’t capture these details, it left many feeling disappointed. 

When Kenny was asked about what he thought was conveyed better in the books he responded that, “I thought that they did a better job with showing just how repulsive the games and the capitol culture as in the books.” 

Overall, I felt that the movie was a great addition to the film series. I recommend that everyone see it in theaters while it is available.