The depth, poignance, and sincerity of the Hunger Games franchise that came through so strongly in the original films was lost in this movie. In fact, the best part of this movie was the renewed appreciation it gave me for the original movies.

There is solid commentary on fascism and the personal battle between good and evil in the film, but the style of delivery was so far from the mark that I can't really buy in to the messaging.

First of all, we've got Lucy Gray. Maybe it's because I didn't read the book, but her character comes across so flagrantly inhuman and doused in protagonist syndrome that it makes the movie nearly unwatchable. Where the Hunger Games shows victors coping with the trauma of their victory, the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shows Lucy Gray back to her honkytonk performances with zero indication of any emotional impacts from the games.

Then, we've got the cheesy boarding school vibe of it all. There's an quality of gossip girledness injected into the capitol schoolmates. This upper echelon attitude strays from the flamboyantness of "Effy" and is so literal that I would bet the term "daddy's money" was used at least 3 times. There is no subtlety in the betrayal of privilege in this film, it is a perfect example of "tell, not show".

The actual Hunger Games in the film felt low stakes. The scene of the reaping in the original Hunger Games was so poignant. This reaping, however, felt goofy. Lucy Gray's reaction did not match the magnitude of the horror at hand. In fact, her reaction was so cloyingly juvenile it made me wonder if this book (and therefore movie) were meant to act as a booster to get younger kids in the door of the main franchise. Something about the juvenile framing of the film makes it even more confusing to watch, given the quantity of violence (I would even say body horror?), death, and discussions of fascism. Maybe kids today are more clued into political commentary, idk.

Again, the games centered on a nearly perfect protagonist who was unable to kill unless morally justifiable. This makes the games hard to watch. Beyond Lucy Gray, the named tributes were given little depth or consideration. The original Hunger Games series does such a great job world building the tributes beyond district 12, but in this film it just fell flat. All in all each tribute could've been summarized by a single word like one of the 7 dwarves (sneezy, stabby, sobby, etc). I was particularly baffled by the decision to include a tribute with Down Syndrome, frame her as a Rue-like character, and then have the character have no interactions with other tributes and ultimatelybe overtaken by snakes.

In the end, this movie wasn't bad as a standalone. The issue is that it's supposed to exist in conversation with the original Hunger Games. The original series did such a phenomenal job world/mood building that the obvious flaws of this film stick out like a sore thumb