I saw The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes earlier this month and I forgot to make the review LOL. Not to say it’s a bad film at all, I quite enjoyed it but not as much as the other Hunger Games, especially the original. I thought this movie was made by the movie studio as an original idea but I didn’t realize Suzanne Collins made a prequel book a few years ago.

The movie actually takes place 65 years before the events of the first film. The Hunger Games are mostly the same, just a lot more primitive.

It focuses a lot on Coriolanus Snow, who is a student at the Academy. His family has fallen on tough times and he was hoping to win a prize so they can get out of poverty. But the students are told that the winner will actually be the one who mentors a Hunger Games contestant to be a crowd favorite so people will continue to watch after ratings have slumped.

Instead of Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of this tale is Lucy Gray Baird. But instead of trying to save her sister, she was rigged to be the contestant after ticking off the daughter of the town’s mayor. She along with her future enemies are definitely more crude talking and unpredictable than the contestants from the more modern Hunger Games.

I will say that the biggest disappointment of the film are the Hunger Games themselves. Since it’s set over a half century before the original, things are a lot more basic. And despite some luck, there’s not many opportunities for many of the players to hide.

It was nice to see Peter Dinklage in a new role outside of the Game of Thrones. He’s a co-creator of The Hunger Games and he’s not a super nice dude either.

Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird are a fairly good team together and have pretty nice chemistry. Rachel Zegler definitely shows that she has range because she definitely acted far better and different than I expected.

I would say that the last third of the film does drag it down a bit. If you pay attention to names, then there is a part where you know it’s coming, and it doesn’t quite feel right. Kind of like how Anakin Skywalker went to the dark side at the snap of a finger.