The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Moves at an unnaturally fast pace and had visibly been condensed, nay, tortured, into a 3 hour film, leaving no time to convey any kind of emotional complexity to any of the characters nor connect with them. As a result, a relatively boring movie. It felt as though there was so much context to provide there was no time to make it enjoyable. Some exciting parts but this was only attributable to Suzanne Collins' writing; I believe the directors heavily relied on the plot already written for them. Rachel exaggerated jaw acting made this not only a boring watch but a difficult one. Lucy Gray was a textbook manic pixie dream girl - I thought cinema would be more self aware by now.

I will start by saying I don't think it's an 8, maybe a 7.5-7.7 so I rounded up.

However, I went in with low expectations, expecting a big budget movie with a poor storyline but otherwise reasonably watchable. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself hooked! And I daresay it was one of the better Hunger Games movies.

The bad reviews I've read seem to miss the point. This is not a story about the origin of the games, it is not a story about 'Lucy Gray" (even though her name is said about 1000 times)... It is a story about Snow and why he became the psychopath we know from the original stories. I found the not-so-happy ending refreshing and if you enjoy and understand social economic/philosophical dilemmas in terms of human psychology then it adds a notch of appreciation.

Viola, Tom and Peter were excellent in their portrayals. Zegler was fine, a little theatrical but given her background I suppose understandable.

I don't understand the hate. Especially the 1-3* reviews. Like, what were you watching!?

I've struggled before with finishing a movie or a TV show I've started because they were boring and lackluster, but I've been struggling with this one for 4 days to finish it and I don't think I have it in me to do it.

It's incredibly long and boring. The characters are bland and most of them annoying , especially Lucy Gray who starts singing out of the blue every step of the way.

I think the only likeable characters are Tigris who has little to almost no screen time and Sejanus who acts like a moral compass throughout the movie and who was done dirty. Otherwise I wasn't rooting for anyone .

I kinda regret starting the movie but I wanted to give it a try. Now I want to finish it on principle because I hate living movies and shows unfinished not because I like it in any shape of form.

It's a pity because its such a downgrade compared to the previous Hunger Games. The only good thing in this movie is Viola Davis who is spectacular as always ... other than that nope, nothing.

I understand that many people highlight how faithful they were to the books. That's brilliant but this is a movie made for the mass audiences now.

First of all, there's way too much of singing, it gets cheesy and annoying. Secondly, they've tried too hard to remind us our "Katniss Everdeen" it's does not feel natural. I don't like Rachel Ziegler's performance at all she is way too theatrical her accent is too comedic. They have tried to make her Katniss.

There must be a Part II for this movie as well I suppose because it left many questions unanswered. I don't want to include spoilers so I will skip those questions.

I liked the movie. It was pretty true to the book, but I found Rachel Zegler's acting so distracting that I found it hard to look past. It's a personal opinion, of course, but I just find her entire disposition offputting. They could've found someone better for this role. The other actors were good This being a prequel, the technology wasn't as complex as the other hunger, games movies and so if you enjoy that aspect of the series, it's definitely missing from this one. It was very interesting to see the development of the Snow character. You also get a little background on the jabberjsys, mockingjays, though this is covered more extensively in the book.