By John Corrado

★★★ (out of 4)

Eight years after the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015, director Francis Lawrence returns to this franchise with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, an adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ 2020 prequel novel of the same name.

The story is set decades before the saga of Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen, focusing instead on the early days of a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), before he became president of Panem. It specifically centres around his involvement in the tenth annual Hunger Games, exploring how a poor kid could rise to become a tyrannical leader.

That itself is a meaty, interesting premise for a prequel, and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a well-crafted addition to the franchise that does a good job of exploring more of this dystopian world, and is nearly on par with the first two films in the series (2012’s The Hunger Games and 2013’s Catching Fire). It’s a long film at 157 minutes, but keeps us engaged through solid performances, some stirring action sequences, and genuine dramatic stakes.

While his late father was a celebrated military leader killed in battle, the orphaned Coriolanus is now living in poverty with his grandma (Fionnula Flanagan) and cousin Tigris (Hunter Schaefer). The Snow family’s fall from grace has left them struggling to make ends meet, but Coriolanus hopes to turn things around by being a star pupil at the Capitol’s prestigious Academy.

It’s through the school that he gets roped into the Hunger Games. Faced with sagging ratings as the games enter their tenth year, the school’s dean Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) decides to recruit the highest marked students to serve as mentors. The students will coach the young tributes, who are being chosen in the reaping to represent their poor districts in the brutal, televised games.

Snow gets paired with Lucy Grey Baird (Rachel Zegler), a rebellious young singer from District 12 who performs with a group of nomadic travelling musicians. She is a natural in front of the cameras, and their joint savviness with the media allows Lucy and Coriolanus to form an alliance. If he can help attract attention to her in the ring, he can make her a fan favourite with the viewers and help her survive, even if she is a long-shot to actually win the barbaric, to-the-death competition.

The film unfolds through a sprawling, at times almost operatic dramatic story that is divided into three chapters. This triptych structure allows for some slight jumps ahead in time, and gives a weight to the storytelling as it charts the ascent (or descent) of the Coriolanus Snow. If the first four films (and three books) charted the rise of a resistance hero from the streets of Panem, this is about how a dictator can be born out of similar desperate circumstances (one could draw allusions between The Hunger Games and Songbirds & Snakes to the original and prequel trilogies in the Star Wars saga).

By going deeper into the lore behind the series, this prequel (which was jointly adapted for the screen by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt) examines how a society that keeps its citizens starving and desperate for food – literally making children fight to the death for it – can turn innocent people into killers. While we already know the dictator that he will become, the film also manages to show the inherent tragedy of Snow’s story, as he is constantly being put in situations and forced to make a series of decisions that send him down this increasingly dark path.

Making us feel some sympathy for this character when we already know his future is no small feat, and this is largely thanks to the lead actor. Blyth carries the film with an impressive performance, showing Coriolanus’s natural charm while also revealing the seeds of the character’s cunning manipulation, inching closer to Donald Sutherland’s portrayal over the course of the film. Zegler, tasked with playing a character who learns how to manipulate an audience, is able to prove her worth as a commanding screen presence, including in several song performances.

The supporting cast also pops off the screen. Jason Schwartzman delightfully chews the scenery as Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman, the arrogant host of the games, serving as the predecessor to Stanley Tucci’s character while also channeling Elizabeth Banks’ high camp Effie Trinket. Viola Davis is allowed to go delightfully weird as the sadistic head game maker Dr. Volumnia Gaul, who starts consulting the young Coriolanus. Schaefer also does a nice job of rounding out the cast as Tigris, breathing life into the character despite her more limited screen time.

Rebounding after the slight letdown of the two Mockingjay films (a finale that would have been much better served if the book hadn’t been split into two movies), Lawrence brings the appropriate sense of scope to this material. The director stages some very solid sequences throughout, including during the games in the decrepit arena, but also in the quieter and more dramatic but no less tense final chapter, when the film breaks away most from the formula of the other movies.

The cinematography by Jo Willems is also quite good, including a few surprisingly interesting camera angles that are refreshing to see in a modern blockbuster. The production design does an excellent job of building upon the retro-futuristic aesthetic of the earlier films, nailing that militarized, post-war look, and the colourful costumes designed by Trish Summerville (Catching Fire) are often eye-catching.

It’s set to a sweeping score by James Newton Howard, that amplifies the sense of tension. At its best, The Hunger Games series has always offered more high-minded blockbuster entertainment, and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes delivers a very satisfying return to this world.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes opens exclusively in theatres on November 17th.