Review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, directed by Francis Lawrence

As soon as I knew this movie was coming out into the universe, I knew I had to see it. I am a part of the generation that grew up with the original Hunger Games movies and books, and while I never read the book version of this movie, my sister and I agreed that we really wanted to see it anyways.

It was going to be the throwback nostalgia that we needed to brighten our Fall 2023, and apparently everyone else had the same idea, as the movie theater we saw the film in was seriously packed. My local movies is never packed like this.

Anyways, we saw it. I still don’t think that I’m going to read the book version of the movie for the sake of time, unless I have a moment in the future where I just have nothing to do for like two weeks.

All of my coworkers and I were talking about the movie when it came out, and while the one girl I worked with didn’t like the movie, the rest of us did.

Let’s get into the review!

A doomed love story in the midst of The Hunger Games as we would come to know it.

We begin this movie with war, as Panem is at war against the Districts. We meet young President Snow, then just Coriolanus, as he runs with his cousin Tigress. His father dies in the war, and thirteen years pass.

Coriolanus is now eighteen and at the Academy in Panem, and each year, 24 students are selected to mentor a tribute for the Hunger Games. Coriolanus realizes that if he does this right, he can get the prize money for the students and support his family with it, but it isn’t about winning the Games.

Instead, the student with the tribute that gets the most attention wins the money.

Coriolanus is given District 12 tribute Lucy Gray, who put on a show by slipping a snake into a girl’s shirt and singing defiantly as she was reaped for the Games. Tigress tells Coriolanus that he needs to get her trust, and he meets her as the tributes are dropped off.

He doesn’t get on her good side originally, but when he comes into the Capital Zoo, the two begin an uneasy partnership. One of his classmates, Sejanus, is grappling with his good friend from home being his tribute.

Afterwards, Coriolanus proposes to the head gamemaker, Dr. Gaul, a thought where people from the Capitol can donate supplies to the tributes during the Games.

When his classmate tries to take credit, Dr. Gaul has her put her hands in a tank full of snakes, and they attack her because they do not know her scent. In the mean time, one of the tributes kills a classmate of his, and the girl is shot dead after the act.

The tributes are then taken to the arena, but the rebels bomb it while they’re in there, killing not only some of the mentors and the President’s son, but tributes as well. Lucy has the chance to run, but she saves Coriolanus instead. He gives her rat poison to use in the Games, and they begin the next day.

Lucy Gray hides with her fellow District 12 Tribute, but he’s slowly going mad from the rabies he got on the train there (he was bitten by a bat). Sejanus has to grapple with his tribute and friend being chained to a rock as a punishment, as he ran during the bombing, and another tribute mercy kills him.

Sejanus sneaks into the arena at night, when no one is watching, and Coriolanus is sent inside to get him out. Coriolanus ends up killing a tribute on the way out, and, the next day, Dr. Gaul announces that everyone is going to die int he arena because of how the President’s son died.

Coriolanus puts a handkerchief with Lucy Gray’s scent in the tank with the snakes, so they know her, and everyone else is killed in the arena by the snakes except her. After he convinces people to let her live, Coriolanus’s deception is found out and he’s sent away to become a Peacekeeper.

He bribes an officer to go to 12, and Sejanus volunteers to join him. There, he meets Lucy Gray again, and they begin a relationship. However, Coriolanus is still loyal to the Capitol, and he records Sejanus’ traitor words with a Jabberyjay and sends it to Dr. Gaul.

They all get into a fight with Lucy Gray’s ex, the mayor’s daughter and the ex are killed, and they hide the guns. Everyone else in the room with them is hanged, including Sejanus, as his Jabberyjay recording doomed him.

Lucy Gray and Coriolanus run away, but while in the cabin in the woods, she shows him the guns. Lucy Gray realizes that Coriolanus will kill her, as she’s stopping him from going home, and runs away.

He chases after her, ready to kill, but a snake bites him and he blindly shoots into the trees with the rifle. No one knows what happens to her, but Coriolanus returns home, welcomed by Dr. Gaul. Sejanus’ parents give him their fortune, and Coriolanus kills Highbottom with poison.

Overall Thoughts

I think this was a good movie in my book.

If you’re not emotionally invested or haven’t seen the other movies, then this isn’t probably going to land well as you, as there are some subtle references to the original movies, despite this taking place many years before the originals.

My one complaint is that it needed to be trimmed when it comes to running time. The third and last part of the second arc really begin to drag, and I was thinking to myself while in the theater that this movie needed to be a tad shorter.

I’m fine with long movies, but this one felt too drawn out and stretched thin with plot by the end.

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