Thankfully, the young adult dystopia boom is in society’s rearview mirror. It seemed a new story about a teenage girl with hidden talents fighting a fascist government came out every week in the early 2010s.The Hunger Gameswas the spark that lit the flame and the only enduringly iconic franchise in the mix.The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakesis a prequel set to reignite that fire, though it struggles to keep up the heat through its interminable runtime.
It’s hard to believe it’s been eight years since the lastHunger Gamesfilm. Director Francis Lawrence crafted every entry in the franchise save the first one. He’s also known forConstantine, I Am Legend,and thecharming recent Netflix outingSlumberland. Lawrence pairs with two writers named Michael. Michael Arndt returns to the franchise after his work onCatching Fire. Michael Lesslie is a playwright known forSwimming with SharksandPrince of Denmark. Together, they’ll craft or borrow more puns about characters' surnames than anyone would find necessary.
Songbirds & Snakestakes place 64 years before the events ofThe Hunger Games. Fans will remember Donald Sutherland’s portrayal of the intimidating,cruel autocrat Coriolanus Snow. The prequel depicts his grim descent from relative humanity to mustache-twirling villainy. Snow begins the piece as a con artist of sorts. His family reached the upper echelon of society, but keeping up appearances has drained their resources. Snow attends a fancy high school where a cash prize for valedictorian could save his loved ones. The dean, a cruel drug addict harboring an unsubtle grudge against Snow, announces a new wrinkle in the competition. Students must mentor the 24 contestants in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Viewers couldn’t care less about the bloodsport broadcast across every screen, so the gamemakers have delegated production duties to 18-year-olds. Snow meets his charge, a traveling musician called Lucy Gray Baird, and sets to work readying her for the cameras.
The draw ofSongbirds & Snakesis the character drama of Coryo Snow falling inevitably into the dark machinations of the fascist government. He’s intelligent, capable, and endlessly driven, but intense pressure reveals his natural aptitude for violence. Tom Blyth, perhaps best known for the title role in MGM+‘sBilly the Kid, portrays Snow as a grim portrait of the system’s chokehold on humanity. Snow is drawn into the games slowly, forced to mold them to suit his ostensibly noble interests. The script frequently swings him from cunning strategic genius to an impulsive, gullible goon to let the plot work. His romance with Lucy Gray,West Side Storystar Rachel Zegler forcing a southern accent, takes up the lion’s share of the runtime despite being the weakest element of the piece. Lucy Gray is barely a character despite Zegler’s powerful vocals. She’s a pile of tropes in a colorful dress. The beats of their relationship fall with clockwork predictability, along with the broader narrative twists and turns.
Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis holdSongbirds & Snakesup by its lapels every moment they’re on-screen. He’s a callous TV host. She’s a proudly unhinged mad scientist. They’re both having a fantastic time.Peter Dinklage also findsa fascinating direction in his evil dean character. He’s at his best when he’s swaggering around intoxicated and refusing to take the battle royale seriously. The higher-ups are gracefully exempt from most of the plot elements. They make decisions that change Snow’s life but don’t have to follow his stage-managed fall from grace or forced romance with a death-row celebrity. The film deserves credit for giving the worldViola Davis’s take on YzmafromThe Emperor’s New Groove, but its pleasures are barely in the same room as the narrative. This film is 157 minutes long, and its brief flashes of entertainment do not save it from that fact.
Songbirds & Snakes’ unwieldy length is broken into three chapters. The first sets the stakes, spending most of its time in gaudy lecture halls. The second is dominatedby the Hunger Games, which have historically been the least entertaining aspect of the franchise. The PG-13 rating demands careful cutting away from the blood and gore that would follow every stab and slam. It’s hilarious to see Viola Davis burst into the room and tell the audience, directly to the camera, that the event they’ve built their film around is so boring that their captive audience refuses to watch. Of course people don’t care. It’s 24 sick, poor, broken teenagers stabbing each other in a featureless room. Who would watch that consistently? There’s no suspense because every viewer knows who will live and die. There’s no action because theparticipants are untrained children, many of whom are half-dead before they enter the arena. The game is a microcosm of the film, a tantalizing premise that fails to deliver.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakeshas something worth saying about the fascist government of Panem, and it will say it as frequently and obviously as possible. This franchise has never felt more aimed toward teenagers than it does now. Fans will likely love this returnto their favorite dystopia. Young folks might find something to like in the censored violence or awkward romance. Adults will struggle to care.Songbirds & Snakesis not without entertainment, but like its bitterly boring bloodsport, the premise is better than the execution.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Cast
Decades before the events ofThe Hunger Games, young Coriolanus Snow struggles to save his family by mentoring a compassionate young tribute in the 10th annual battle to the death.
