CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The Hunter Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) - I liked the original Hunger Games movies, though the third and fourth did suffer a bit by being one book needlessly divided into two movies. They benefited a lot from Jennifer Lawrence's excellent lead performance and the more satirical elements. This prequel is the story of future Hitler Coriolanus Snow's younger days and his relationship with a Games' tribute (Rachel Zeglel as Lucy Gray) who he has to mentor. For some reason though, maybe just from the trailers, I assumed that Zegler as Lucy would be at least the co-lead of the movie. But she isn't really, this is all Snow's story and I think it suffers from never cutting to Lucy's point of view. Zegler is very good at making Lucy sassy and singing and stuff, but we never get as inside her head as we do with Katniss from the originals. I didn't really buy the romance between her and Snow as I don't think the film did a good job of showing why they fell for each other. Snow is kind of played at first like you don't know if he cares about Lucy or if he's just using her to win power, and I feel like this aspect is dragged out too long. The film itself is way too long at two and a half hours. And even if you just look at it as Snow's story and not Lucy's at all I don't think it really goes far enough with him either as it just kind of ends with him still at the very beginning of his journey into Hitlerdom. There are some good moments: I liked when the Tributes are thrown into a zoo when they arrive in the Capitol and Jason Schwartzman is fun as the tv persenter/shitty magician. But meh this isn't as good as the originals, doesn't have their edge and I wish it had been a dual narrative.