What a good villain origin story.
It has been quite a few years since we have got any major Hunger Games content and now we have the prequel movie The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Which is fantastic. We follow Coriolanus Snow before he becomes the antagonist we know and hate, President Snow. His family is struggling and he is just trying his best to support them and make it to university. Throughout the film, he mentors a tribute Lucy Gray Baird and falls in love, he breaks rules and most awful of all he breaks trust.
Near the beginning, I was really sympathizing with Snow and rooting for him but as the film goes on things start to fall apart and they set it up in such a way that just in those couple of hours I was completely on board with his rise and fall.
The visuals in this movie look great! Returning to the dystopic world of the Hunger Games is interesting. once again and the soundtrack does a great job of enhancing the film. Lucy Gray is a performer so we hear her sing throughout the film and it is splendid every time. We also learn the origin of the hanging tree song that Katniss sings in her films. This movie gives it some deeper meaning. We also hear an Olivia Rodrigo song featured in the film “Can’t Catch Me Now” and it is also really good. It earned a place right onto my playlist. She based the song off of a scene near the end of the film and now knowing what it is about, it makes a lot more sense.
I would highly recommend checking this one out if you are a fan of the Hunger Games movies, or if you are not as it is a prequel. Although you would probably get more out of it if you have seen the other content. Below is the trailer if you still want to see more.
-Jared Gomes
