Alright, alright, let me tell ya ’bout this new Hunger Games movie, the 2023 one. They call it “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” fancy, huh? Don’t ask me what all that means, I just watched the dang thing.
So, this ain’t about that girl Katniss, the one with the bow and arrow. This is way back when, years and years before her time. It’s about this young fella, Coriolanus Snow. Yeah, the same Snow, the mean old president guy from the other movies. But here, he’s just a kid, tryin’ to make somethin’ of himself.
See, his family, they used to be big shots, but things went south. Now he’s gotta win this scholarship thing, the “Plinth Prize,” to get the family back on their feet. And how does he do that? He’s gotta mentor some poor soul in the Hunger Games, the tenth one, they say.
- This year’s Hunger Game ain’t like the ones we saw before.
- Things are rougher, they say, more like a real fight than a show.
- And the kids, they ain’t so trained up, just regular folks thrown into the arena.
The girl he gets stuck with, Lucy Gray Baird, she’s from District 12, the coal mining place, real rundown. But she’s got a mouth on her, and she can sing like a bird. That’s where the “songbird” part comes in, I guess.
Now, this young Snow, he’s supposed to be all proper and whatnot, but he ain’t so bad. He actually tries to help Lucy Gray, teachin’ her how to survive, gettin’ her sponsors, the whole shebang. And they kinda, sorta, start to like each other, if you know what I mean. It’s a strange kinda liking, though, not like the lovey-dovey stuff you see in them romance pictures.
The movie, it shows you all the fancy folks in the Capitol, the ones makin’ the rules and watchin’ the games. They are somethin’ else, all dressed up and eatin’ good while them kids fight to the death. Makes you think, don’t it? About who’s really the bad guys.
They say Gary Ross, the fella who did the first Hunger Games movie, he didn’t do this one. This one’s got a different director. And the actors, they’re all new too. This Tom Blyth kid plays young Snow, and he’s pretty good. And Rachel Zegler, she plays Lucy Gray, real feisty, she is. They got this kinda chemistry, ya know, like they’re pullin’ at each other, but not always in a good way.
The movie, it’s long, I ain’t gonna lie. And it ain’t always easy to follow. They talk a lot about politics and power and all that. But the main thing is still the same: it’s about survival, about who lives and who dies. And it’s about how people can be good and bad at the same time.
They tried to make it look real fancy, the Capitol and all. More run down lookin’, though, like they ain’t got all the fancy tech yet. And the arena, it’s just a big ol’ dusty place, nothin’ like the fancy jungle or the clock thingy from the other movies. But it’s scary, believe you me. You really feel for them kids, stuck in there, fightin’ for their lives.
Some folks, they say it ain’t exactly like the book. They changed some things, made it different. But, you know what? I think it worked. It made sense to me, the way they did it. And the endin’, well, I won’t spoil it for ya, but it’s somethin’ to think about. It sets up how that young Snow becomes the old, mean Snow, the one we all know and hate.
It’s all about the spectacle, ya know? Makin’ a big show, that’s what matters to them Capitol folks, and that’s what this movie shows you. It’s a whole lot of flash and bang, but underneath it all, it’s still about the same old things: hunger, power, and the fight to stay alive.
So, is it any good, this movie? Well, it ain’t perfect, that’s for sure. But it kept me interested, made me think. And that’s more than you can say for a lot of them pictures these days. If you liked them other Hunger Games movies, you’ll probably like this one too. Just don’t expect it to be exactly the same. This one is its own beast.
Tags: [Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, movie review, Coriolanus Snow, Lucy Gray Baird, prequel, Panem, dystopian, survival, Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler]
