The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes review: The dystopian saga lives up to the promise

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set during early post-war Panem, 64 years before the first Hunger Games movie. For the tenth annual Hunger Games, rules are tweaked and Coriolanus, who is the last hope for his fading lineage, is assigned to mentor Lucy, the female tribute from impoverished District 12. He desperately wants to win the prize to help his once-affluent family regain its glory.

Lucy grabs Panem’s attention when she puts a snake inside the gown of the local mayor’s daughter, who is now in a relationship with the former’s boyfriend, before proceeding to defiantly sing during the reaping ceremony. While the strength of Katniss Everdeen (a character essayed and popularised by Jennifer Lawrence), the protagonist of original Hunger Games movies, seemed to lie in archery and ability to think on her feet, Lucy seems to derive her power from singing and grit.

Both Blyth and Zegler infuse their performances with dynamism and hold the audience’s attention. As both their characters follow a graph and undergo changes, the lead actors deftly bring out their struggles, triumphs and complexities.

Blyth shows the tender side of young President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland in earlier movies of the franchise) before political savviness and ambition gets the better of him. Those familiar with the franchise already know that he turns out to be a ruthless fascist ruler.

Peter Dinklage, as expected, is convincing as the bitter Dean of the Academy, Casca Highbottom, who is holding a grudge against Coriolanus’s father for taking the credit for ‘hunger games’ that Highbottom had thought of. Viola Davis’s portrayal of ‘head gamemaker’, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, is campy but effective. She seems to be having fun with the character with a voluminous frizzy mop.

The screenplay, written by Michael Arndt and Michael Lesslie, is based on Suzanne Collins’s novel by the same name. It shifts gear in the film’s final segment as the action moves to District 12. This is where Coriolanus comes to terms with Gaul’s view of human nature as inherently violent as well as reveals his lack of scruples.

Though the narrative, with 158-minute runtime, slackens at some points, especially after the competition is over, the film manages to awe the audience with powerful performances and grand visuals.

The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes director: Francis Lawrence
The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes cast: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Josh Andrés Rivera, Peter Dinklage and Viola Davis
The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes rating: 3 stars