The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The dystopian franchise returns with an inept prequel that suffers greatly from the absence of Jennifer Lawrence.
‘Let Me Entertain You’: Rachel Zegler
Photo Credit: Murray Close, Courtesy of Lionsgate
Eleven years after the first Hunger Games broke box-office records, we get the prequel. It has been a curious phenomenon, where young people kill each other for the delectation of others, and has lead to such similar series as Divergent and The Maze Runner. It echoes a certain sensibility which might account for the success of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! and Nigel Farage’s reported £1.5 million pay check. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an extension of this, tapping into an unhealthy gladiatorial spirit, which would explain the film’s surprisingly robust opening box-office.
While it shares one similarity with last week’s daft The Marvels (a commercial disaster) – that is, an out-of-nowhere musical number – it is nowhere near as much fun. In fact, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is humourless, self-important and terribly tedious and dreadfully confusing for those unfamiliar with the book. As with the first film and its sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is based on a novel by Suzanne Collins, who’s made a fortune catering to the bloodthirsty appetites of children and young adults everywhere. Here, we jump back 64 years before the events of the first film, where the imperious Coriolanus Snow (previously played by Donald Sutherland) is now just 18 and is chosen to mentor a participant (or ‘tribute’) from District 12. The ‘tribute’ is a rebellious firebrand and Country & Western singer called Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler) who is expected to entertain the citizens of the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem while fighting for her life. The teenage Coriolanus (English actor Tom Blyth) can support her, so long as he doesn’t intervene in her attempts at survival. And thereby hangs a tale…
For all the film’s flaws, the deadliest would be the casting of Blyth and Zegler. While the Brummie actor copes perfectly well with his American vowels, his frozen expression provides little emotional variation. He seems constantly aghast, even when falling for the understandable charms of the madly miscast Ms Zegler. She, so good in Spielberg’s West Side Story, is tasked with appropriating a Southern accent and a seditious nature, neither of which approaches a semblance of credibility. As the for the romantic chemistry between the two, it is as carbonated as tap water.
Presumably Rachel Zegler was cast as Lucy Gray because she can sing and because she’s du jour, while Tom Blyth bears a passing resemblance to Donald Sutherland in his youth, although the English actor is far more distractingly like a young Richard E. Grant (future casting directors take note). In the supporting ranks, Viola Davis and Jason Schwartzman are encouraged to act outrageously, with the latter, as Lucretius Flickerman, an early commentator on the games, giving a good impression of Stanley Tucci (who played Caesar Flickerman), proving that nepotism is here to stay. What the film lacks is the saving grace of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen and a sense of narrative propulsion. Many scenes make little human sense and although the visuals are nothing if not imposing, the editing is shamefully sloppy and the self-conscious camera angles off-putting. There is an air of Tolstoy in the grandeur and moroseness of it all, but without the human spark.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Viola Davis, Fionnula Flanagan, Burn Gorman, Ashley Liao, Athena Strates, Nick Benson, Ayomide Adegun, Max Raphael, Luna Steeples.
Dir Francis Lawrence, Pro Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson and Francis Lawrence, Screenplay Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, from the novel by Suzanne Collins, Ph Jo Willems, Pro Des Uli Hanisch, Ed Mark Yoshikawa, Music James Newton Howard, Costumes Trish Summerville, Sound Jeremy Peirson, Dialect coach Tanera Marshall.
Color Force/Good Universe/Lions Gate Films-Lionsgate.
156 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 7 November 2023. Cert. 12A.
