I saw The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpents in the cinema. I’ve been waiting for this movie for 10 years

The new film “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds” has been released in Russia.

The last film in the Hunger Games universe, created by writer Suzanne Collins, was released back in 2014. And now, almost 10 hours later, the world saw the film adaptation of the prequel, which is aimed at showing the world from the other side.

Today we will look at how a film about the franchise antagonist President Snow came about.

Have the authors managed to freshen up the universe and at the same time maintain the quality level of the original trilogy? Let’s figure it out. We have already watched the new product and will hasten to share our impressions.

Return to your favorite universe

There are many ways to read The Hunger Games. For some, this is a standard teenage movie, for others, it is a deep story in a non-standard setting, which instantly gathered millions of fans around the world in 2012.

I rate him more as a neutral person. I think that the first film happened in any case, and then the film franchise did not have particularly strong development, unlike the original source.

What is the movie about: Before becoming the autocratic President of Panem, young Coriolanus Snow was the last hope for his fading line – a once-great dynasty that had fallen out of favor with the post-war Capitol. On the eve of the tenth annual Hunger Games, Snow is mentored by District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird.

The girl’s success attracts more and more attention from Panem, becoming the favorite in the upcoming competition. Ready to do anything to restore his family to its former glory, Snow decides to turn the situation with Lucy in her favor. A race against time begins to determine who is the songbird and who is the snake.

In the original series of films, President Snow didn’t try very hard to reveal himself. His motives were clear, but we literally knew next to nothing about him.

In the new film, we are told exactly about the formation of the Snow family. And due to this, I want to reveal the main antagonist from the other side, to make him a more complex character.

What I immediately didn’t like was the lost essence of the Hunger Games. More precisely, not like that. The message meant that they stayed, but they lost in their spectacle. And this, for a moment, shows what masters all of Panem are. From the very beginning, the viewer is told that the essence here lies not in the very essence of the program, but in behind-the-scenes games, so you shouldn’t expect the same fierce dynamics. Half of the tributes die before the first leader.

Director Francis Lawrence (who directed all parts except the first) realized that he was working with a lot of information, which meant he needed to speed up, despite the running time of 2.5 hours.

Both the main and subplots suffer because of this. This is happening all chaotically on all sides. The main plot is still at least somewhat faithful to the source material, but it leaves out too many points. During the entire period of observation, for example, the stage of growing up of a teenager in a totalitarian capitalist state is not visible.

Authors often switch between stories and interfere with each other, locations also change each other at lightning speed. A large budget is visible, but it seems that it was not entirely possible to distribute it correctly.

There are moments that can be downright annoying. I will not be the first and I will not be the last to say about the most terrible songs of Lucy, who is supervised by Snow in the tenth Hunger Games. It’s as if the Alien began to sing, although no one expected this from him. In general, hmm. It was possible to do without this.

Snow’s image has changed. But I cannot say that after viewing the picture I began to justify his actions or somehow objectively empathize with him. However, Colorian will more controversial person in your eyes, I definitely guarantee this.

What’s important is that we get to see the Hunger Games from the mentors’ perspective, which was not the case in the original trilogy. And this is possible skillfully, with soul and love in the franchise. It is clear that the creators were not just inspired by the original source, but lived this story together with fictional characters.

Pompous, but not like before

This is expected. The Capitol was still so disorganized and so far only in the process of transition to a new reality – it was holding the Hunger Games, albeit for the tenth time in a row. Many people have not yet moved away from the uprisings and war; here the emphasis is shifted in the other direction.

However, the picture still turned out great. It is beautiful, bright, sometimes even too pretentious, executed at the highest level. Despite the somewhat drawn out plot, it is the visuals that help you “skip” such moments; they draw you in and help you better understand what is happening.

Especially in the third act, the already poetic beauty of the film predominates. Although the climax is compressed in its content, it clearly places all the accents.

Musical accompaniment in the film well chosen, there’s not much to complain about (except for Lucy’s songs). Where necessary, we start with strings, and where the plot requires it, we start with spirituals and percussion.

In the end we got a good prequel

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds is a good example of a prequel that, even 10 years after the original film adaptation, maintains the same bar of quality.

I can’t say that I will watch it again in the future. But for a movie whose universe has expanded, it hasn’t happened badly. There are some drawbacks here, including too much timing and half-empty characters, but they are painted well, as always, and, as a rule, visually. Whether to watch or not is your choice.