Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (February 18, 2024)
When the four-film Hunger Games saga concluded with 2015’s Mockinjay Part 2, it wrapped the tale of protagonist Katniss Everdeen with enough of a neat ‘n’ tidy bow to leave the series little logical room for sequels. So where could the franchise go?
Prequels, of course! For the first – and perhaps only – film to look at the Hunger Games universe pre-Katniss, we head to 2023’s The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
Set about six decades prior to the events of the initial films, we meet 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), the son of a general who died more than a decade earlier during the battle between the Panem Capitol and its 13 districts. With the family name in tatters and shorn of wealth and resources, Coriolanus agrees to mentor a combatant in the 10th Annual Hunger Games, as he hopes this will bring the Snows back to prominence and also earn him a scholarship.
Coriolanus gets assigned to work with Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) of District 12. As Lucy earns audience affection, Coriolanus finds himself torn between his desire to advance the elitist status quo or to embrace the more rebellious flavor Lucy inspires.
Well, we all know how that story ends. The Katniss films make it clear Coriolanus – as played by Donald Sutherland – becomes a malevolent tyrant.
Thus Snakes finds itself stuck with an inherent problem found in prequels: a lack of suspense. Or at least a moderate lack of suspense, as Snakes comes with enough characters unfamiliar to us that we don’t know where their journeys will lead.
However, given that Snakes makes Coriolanus the co-lead, this remains an issue. Just like Anakin Skywalker, we enter Snakes fully aware of where the character will wind up in his older state.
Does this mean Snakes becomes destined to flop as a film? Of course not, but the fact we know where one of its leads will end up reduces a lot of potential drama.
Perhaps ala the Star Wars prequels, those behind Snakes hoped that we’d find the journey compelling enough to overcome its inevitability. Much of the potential appeal from Episodes I through III came from our ability to see what turned Anakin from noble Jedi to Sith monster, even if the actual films didn’t fulfill those hopes tremendously well.
I suppose those involved with Snakes felt that Hunger Games fans also might find themselves fascinated by Snow’s path to evil. And maybe they did, but let’s face it: Coriolanus Snow isn’t exactly a legendary character ala Darth Vader, and I doubt many Games buffs spent a lot of time wondering what made him the nasty piece of work seen in the Katniss films.
I sure didn’t, though I admit I exist as a lukewarm Games fan at best. I thought the first two movies were fairly enjoyable but the two parts of Mockingjay ended the franchise on a less than stellar note.
As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I flocked to the prequels in theaters. As a middling Hunger Games fan, I didn’t even bother with Snakes during its multiplex run.
Did I miss anything special? No, but Snakes manages to become a fairly serviceable expansion of the Hunger Games universe.
Albeit one that doesn’t demonstrate a whole lot of need to exist. Like I mentioned earlier, Coriolanus doesn’t seem like a character whose origin story a huge fanbase craved to comprehend.
And Snakes doesn’t manage to invent a particularly compelling view of young Snow, at least not in terms of actually making us care about him in the greater scheme of things. In the Katniss movies, President Snow existed as little more than a cruel, self-serving plot device, one who didn’t function as much more than the instrument of broader evil.
Whereas the Star Wars Original Trilogy developed some backstory for Darth Vader and made us interested in how Anakin wound up in that state, the Katniss flicks never set up Snow in that manner. He remained a role without a lot to make audiences curious about his past.
That continues to make the fact Snakes focuses on Coriolanus curious, though I admit the film generates a moderately intriguing look at what turned him into the beast we know from the four Katniss movies. If nothing else, I find it semi-interesting to follow a Hunger Games story from a perspective other than that of a District combatant.
Of course, Snakes turns Coriolanus into something of an underdog. Despite his family’s prior prominence, we find them as struggling and needy at this flick’s start.
Even so, Coriolanus still shows a perspective that varies from what we got in the first four films. This allows Snakes a bit of verve.
It also helps that Lucy Gray doesn’t exist as a basic Katniss clone. Indeed, as played by Zegler with an effervescent form of country charm, she comes across as a dark-haired, waif-like Dolly Parton.
Katniss showed a virtually opposite personality, so I appreciate that we get a female protagonist without the same traits. Snakes also doesn’t present Lucy Gray as a skilled killer, so that offers another pleasing alteration.
In addition, Snakes doesn’t conclude with the combat at the Hunger Games themselves as one might expect. To some degree, I assumed Snakes would echo the structure of the first movie in the franchise - and to some degree, it does.
But the final act goes past the results of the 10th Hunger Games, and these offer hints at what turned Coriolanus from a semi-sympathetic young man into the tyrant seen in the Katniss movies. To my surprise, Snakes finishes in a somewhat open-ended way, but it also doesn’t clearly point toward another chapter in a prequel saga.
Perhaps because unlike the Katniss series, Snakes exists in novel form as only one book at this time. Author Suzanne Collins published the third and final Games novel two years before the movies debuted, so as long as that 2012 flick succeeded, the producers enjoyed a clear narrative arc to follow for additional chapters.
On the other hand, Collins published only one prequel novel before Snakes went into production – and as of early 2024, no new books have emerged. This means that any subsequent Coriolanus-based movies currently lack preexisting source material to adapt.
Based on the reception accorded Snakes, it feels wholly unclear whether Lionsgate will want to pursue additional prequels anyway. Given a $100 million budget and a $337 million worldwide gross, Snakes turned a profit.
However, those receipts look less appealing when one realizes that the least successful Katniss movie - Mockingjay 2 - earned nearly twice as much as Snakes. Perhaps the studio never expected the prequel to approach the same sales as the four Katniss movies, but I can’t imagine these results encourage them to push Collins to write a second Snow-based book.
And that would be fine with me, as I don’t see a lot of room for truly compelling material here. On one hand, Snakes works better than I feared, as it offers a moderately interesting look at the Hunger Games universe decades before we meet Katniss Everdeen.
On the other hand, the story involved still seems vaguely irrelevant, as even after I watched Snakes, I didn’t find myself any more invested in Snow’s origin story than I felt before I saw the movie. Again: he’s an important character in the Katniss films but not one whose saga begged for exploration.
Honestly, one film of young Snow feels sufficient. Snakes implies tyranny yet to come well enough that we can use our imaginations to piece together Snow’s path.
Would I roll my eyes at a continued Coriolanus saga? No, as this one does enough right to make the prospect at least moderately intriguing.
Still, I can’t muster more energy than that, and I think a Hunger Games prequel that focuses on the rebellion that killed Snow’s father would’ve been substantially more interesting. In the absence of that property, Snakes becomes a watchable prequel that simply lacks a real reason to exist.
