‘The Hunger Games’ is a series of movies that has been loved and hated since the first movie dropped in 2012.
In the Hunger Games there are 12 districts and each must select a boy and a girl to go into the arena and fight to survive. Many are familiar with the movies and how they go, however, a new movie was released on November 17, 2023.
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” takes viewers on a journey 64 years before Katniss Everdeen made her big entrance. Young Coriolanus Snow, played by Tom Blyth, lives at the Capitol in Panem. He is surviving while trying to maintain the lineage of his family who had fallen during the war but is thrown through a loop when he and his classmates are chosen to mentor the tributes in the 10th annual hunger games. He is chosen to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a charming girl who has a passion for singing, from District 12 and in the process ends up developing feelings for her.
The movie takes watchers through the time that Lucy and Snow spend together and eventually it is known that Lucy Gray is the winner of the games. In the end, Snow is made to leave the Capital when it is discovered that he cheated while helping Lucy. He is to be sent to District 8 but instead ends up being sent to District 12 with hopes of locating Lucy Gray.
In the second half of the movie, Snow not only finds his beloved Lucy Gray but finds himself in trouble. After losing his friend, Snow ends up on the run with Lucy. In the end no one quite knows what happened to Lucy Gray but one thing is for sure: She was his downfall.
There are many great lines from the movie and a few stick out especially. In the end of the movie after Snow makes his comeback to the capital we hear him tell Dean Highbottom, “Snow lands on top”. As well as when the movie ends and the screen fades to black we hear older president Snow announce, “ It is the things we love most that destroy us”. These lines are significant because Snow made it to the top, that is until Katniss Everdeen came along to knock him down and Snow’s downfall was the one thing he loved: Lucy Gray Baird.
Overall the movie was excellent, the action kept viewers on the edge of their seats and the romance made for great background information on the famous President Snow. If action movies are your thing then The Hunger Games is for you.
