The prequel to The Hunger Games is here serves as the origin story for President Coriolanus Snow, who was previously played by Donald Sutherland in the previous films. Here, he is played by Tom Blyth and is the main character, and much like other franchise movies that put a villain in the main role, it has a difficult time balancing how we are meant to feel about the character.
The story starts with Snow starting his quest to win the Plynth Prize Scholarship. Quickly he is set up as the mentor for Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from District 12. After her turn in West Side Story and her upcoming Snow White, of course she’d be playing a singing combatant in this movie.
Seeing the story unfold from the villain’s perspective is an interesting one. As a prequel this film shouldn’t require you to understand what the Hunger Games are, and this film spends minimal time explaining the concept. We see that the movie is set in a world where a war has ended and young people from various districts are randomly chosen to go into a battle to the death. The last man standing is then able to get riches and supplies for their whole district whilst the others suffer.
The films have always gone on the idea that the rich class allow the lower class to suffer whilst they display their dismay in a quest for ratings. It’s similar to the Running Man in that way. Unlike the previous films that start with Katniss Everdeen’s perspective this is told mostly from the position of the future president and evil ruler. This greatly humanises him and whilst it’s good to not have as a one tone villain, the results of how it shows his transformation to the character he will become are mixed. Whilst we can see how he becomes the person he will, there is a definite disconnect by the end.
Zegler is just fine in the role of Lucy, and although her introduction is a mix of singing and putting a snake down the dress of someone she doesn’t like made something of a statement, she isn’t actually prominently featured for a significant time. A turning point in the movie comes when a bombing on where all the tributes are sees Lucy help a trapped Coriolanus when she doesn’t have to.
The Hunger Games has always had a focus on the pageantry of the games and turning the combatants into celebrities. Using Zegler as the singing warrior Princess just about works, but it also turns the movie into Hunger Games the Musical which I’m not sure anyone asked for.
I think the movie could have done more to highlight the other tributes as to really care about the fates of these characters we need time to get to know them.
Supporting cast includes Peter Dinklage and Viola Davis as the creators of the Hunger Games. They bring weight to the otherwise younger cast and clearly have a lot of fun being awful people. It’s a shame they didn’t get more screen time and that must of those involved in the hunger games are generic sinister people who mostly will turn on each other.
The actual Hunger Games is just one part of the overall bigger story being told in this film. The story does more to follow Snow to see his journey that will lead him to where we see him in the original films. I found the last quarter of the film to be the most interesting and it’ll be interesting to see how they follow this up, if indeed we do get a sequel. An origin story for the Joker worked as that was a standalone version of the character. Prequels for Harry Potter didn’t go as well, and it’d be a shame if there is a trend of franchises fizzling out due to poorly received prequels.
As this is, it’s a good film, and in some ways is just as good as the films that came before it. For fans of the series, this will be a delight to see. For others, this is still a solid movie with good performances and action.
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