poster for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

par

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Watched Agrandir The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes from themoviedb.org

64 years before he becomes the tyrannical president of Panem, Coriolanus Snow sees a chance for a change in fortunes when he mentors Lucy Gray Baird, the female tribute from District 12.

Things you should know about me:

  • I was (am?) a Hunger Games superfan (to the point that I launched an ill-fated webseries project which got me bankrupt, but that’s a story for another time)
  • I loved The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes when it came out. It was really good and seeing the bootstrap years is a completely different outlook.

Things I found out about this movie:

  • The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has many issues and the fact that the movie is so faithful to the novel (like the original trilogy!) really, really underlines them.
  • Like its predecessors, it’s probably only good if you already read and enjoyed the novel(s).

Don’t get me wrong, this was a good movie! I had a good time! The actors were excellent and the arena was everything I had ever imagined! But oh, the corniness of Lucy Gray Baird and her singing… it was too much.

Then again: it’s an excellent prequel about a fascinating character, Coriolanus Snow. Baird is a distraction and when I started viewing her as such, I could tolerate her more and actually focus on the story and on the real topic of the movie: Snow’s rise, and fall, and rise. (The actress, Rachel Zegler, who was brilliant in the new West Side Story, really does her best. Her character is just too much.)

Also of note:

  • You’d think that reading the book and knowing that there’s the word Snakes in the title of the movies would be enough of a warning for the herpetophobic person that I am.
  • I was less affected by them that I usually am, though. Progress?
  • It’s very impressive what a haircut will do to an actor’s character.
❤️

Commentaire / Comment

Commenter

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)