The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ends with a foreboding promise.
We watch as Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) plays a victory excursion of types, having simply arrived again within the Capitol from District 12. He secures a swanky new gamemaker place with Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis), poisons his enemy Dean Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), and reclaims his circle of relatives house. Within the movie’s ultimate moments, he gazes up at a gleaming Capitol statue in resolution, as though he is already sizing up the presidency of Panem.
In that one look, the message is obvious: Snow could have landed on best, however in doing so, he is grow to be the monster who will terrorize the districts for years yet to come. It is a chilling reminder of what is subsequent for Panem, and an efficient finishing for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
After which the movie is going and undermines all of that.
‘The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ evaluation: This go back to Panem used to be smartly well worth the wait
Because the display screen fades to black, we pay attention a well-known voice talking some acquainted phrases. Donald Sutherland, the unique President Snow, returns in voiceover, announcing, “It is the issues we adore maximum that spoil us.” Cue an enormous eye roll from me.
There are a number of issues improper with this last second, the primary being that this voiceover merely is not important. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes spends its whole runtime eager about a tender President Snow, so why impulsively shoehorn in Sutherland’s model within the movie’s ultimate seconds? That is the type of habits I might be expecting to look in a trailer to tease who Snow will grow to be, however no longer from the theatrical unlock itself. And wager what? This quote does, in reality, shut out the movie’s first trailer, making its inclusion right here really feel all of the extra redundant. (In step with an Leisure Weekly interview with director Francis Lawrence, the usage of the quote within the trailer ended in him the use of it within the movie.)
Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”
Credit score: Murray Shut
The voiceover seems like a determined try to remind us that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes position in the similar international as The Starvation Video games, despite the fact that it is inconceivable to assume in a different way. Even supposing you put out of your mind the real Starvation Video games and Capitol of all of it, we are nonetheless following characters whose Starvation Video games futures we all know, like Coriolanus and his cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer). We additionally be told the origins of a number of franchise staples, just like the mockingjays and the “Putting Tree” music. Certain, one of the crucial references lean towards awkward fan carrier, like Lucy Grey Baird (Rachel Zegler) explaining what the plant katniss is. However even that does not examine to getting bludgeoned over the top through a quote lifted without delay from Mockingjay: Section I.
Scratch that, it is not simply the quote. It is the precise audio ripped from a scene between Katniss and Snow. That audio feels wildly misplaced within the context of the remainder of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is itself aesthetically distinct from the opposite Starvation Video games movies. Lawrence has crafted a retrofuturistic imaginative and prescient of Panem’s previous that carries seeds of what this international will grow to be, however that may additionally stand by itself if important. Snow’s wonder voiceover shatters that, forcing extra connective tissue between all of the Starvation Video games movies that we merely didn’t want. Take into accounts how underwhelming it could were had Suzanne Collins modified the general line of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes from “Snow lands on best” to “Snow lands on best… till Katniss Everdeen got here to knock him down.” That is mainly what is going down right here, handiest in film shape.
Even thematically, the inclusion is clunky. The quote, initially about Katniss and Peeta, does discuss to Coriolanus’ personal ill-fated love for Lucy Grey. He would possibly consider that his love for her just about destroyed him through getting him disgraced and exiled after the Starvation Video games. However in fact, it is his choice to activate her and his pal Sejanus (Josh Andrés Rivera) that sends him down a darker trail. He would possibly not consider that trail to be one in all destruction, for the reason that it gives him extra energy, however the other people of Panem will endure in consequence.
The object is, we get a robust working out of all of that from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ ultimate moments — even with out the voiceover! Up till Sutherland is available in, there is a sturdy sense of dread for what Snow’s long run holds, and what ache he’ll wreak at the country. However once we pay attention that quote, we are left with a sinking feeling that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes does not believe us to attract connections between itself and the opposite Starvation Video games movies. That, and now we have been performed for nostalgia bait.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is now in theaters.
