Critics are responding to The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, ahead of its UK release on 17 November.
The movie – which is a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy, based on the novel series by Suzanne Collins – is set 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteers to partake in the Hunger Games, a dystopian fight to the death between children. The premise focuses on the origin story of the future president, Coriolanus Snow, played by Tom Blyth.
With a budget of $100 million, the generational impact of the original trilogy, and famous faces including Viola Davis (The Help, The Suicide Squad), Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) and Peter Dinklage (Game Of Thrones, Avengers: Infinity War) anticipation around the prequel was high.
However, the critical response to the first screenings has been largely negative. Directed by previous The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, the film has been criticised as lacking in the excitement and drama promised by the trailer, and not living up to the expectation following the first films.
The Telegraph compared the movie to the success of the original trilogy, and the fans’ hunger for another instalment saying: “Lionsgate have rustled one up from Suzanne Collins’s 2020 prequel novel, and the vibe is very much: sorry, but this is what we had in the fridge.”
Equally The Guardian, who gave the film a scathing one-star review, commented, “That initially fierce film series was subject to the law of diminishing returns, but they never quite diminished to zero.”
Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter claimed that the prequel “sorely missed” the star of The Hunger Games trilogy, writing: “The main takeaway from The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is the realisation that a critical element of what made the four previous Hunger Games films enjoyable — even the concluding entry, unrewardingly stretched over two parts — was the natural pluck and charisma of Jennifer Lawrence.”
Many critics are commenting on the shortcomings in the plot and suspense of the action, especially regarding the showing of another set of Games. The Telegraph wrote: “The film hobbles itself almost immediately by requiring us sit through another Hunger Game first,” an act which Empire described as “leaden with exposition, served up via on-the-nose dialogue with the overarching themes of totalitarianism and the banality of evil.”
Reviews are generally critical of the cast, with Rachel Zegler’s southern accent as Lucy Gray Baird being criticised as “distracting” and Blyth’s portrayal of Sutherland evoking this response by The Telegraph: “You never feel you are actually watching a young Sutherland, or even a young version of the aloof, enigmatic strategist he so memorably brought to life.”
However, there is one element of the movie which repeatedly receives praise from critics, Jason Schwartzmen’s portrayal as Lucky Flickerman, the Games’ TV host and nod to Stanley Tucci’s role as Caesar Flickerman in the original films.
The Guardian wrote: “For sure, Jason Schwartzman gets laughs playing the Games’s oleaginous TV host and part-time weather forecaster Lucky Flickerman, but the humour of his role only seems to point up the baffling and strenuously uninteresting solemnity of everything else.”
Similarly, The Telegraph commented on the brief moment of comedy: “Jason Schwartzman’s puckish commentator has to feign excitement during the dull parts – which is funny in itself, but also a bad sign for us.”
Overall, the movie has been slated by major movie critics. With few redeeming factors, a “tiring” plot and weak characters, The Guardian concluded that “the time to end the Games came long ago”.
In other Hunger Games news, Francis Lawrence recently ruled out the prospect of making any further films, unless they are based on author Suzanne Collins’ original stories.
“If Suzanne has another thematic idea that she feels fits into the world of Panem – whether that’s with new people [or] familiar characters [like] Finnick, Haymitch, whoever – I’d be really interested in looking at it and being a part of it,” he said. “But I don’t have any pull of just going, ‘I would love to do Finnick’s games.’ He’s a great character, but what’s the thematic underpinnings that make it worth telling and relevant?”
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