The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes

In my humble opinion the four Hunger Games movies were somewhat better than the three Hunger Games books. Why? I think Katniss Everdeen was a bit of an unreliable Narrator (the books are told from her first-person perspective) and she was NOT an extremely complicated character anyways. So the movies resonated more with me because we often got the fuller picture with scenes about what was going on in the districts during the Games, not from her perspective. Which was cool.

I like the Ballad book a little better than the film. Snow IS a complicated character, and a great deal is lost without the unseen narrator (the book is told in third person, still from Snow's perspective) telling us that he loathes the Mockingjays on sight (which gives the reader greater context for his immediate dislike of Katniss in the earlier books). Or the fact that he already had been planning to go home to the Capitol and betray Lucy Gray the moment he found the guns at the end. His heel-turn is a little clearer for that reason, and far less forgivable. And it's Snow. It shouldn't be forgivable at all.

It's also made more explicit that Snow realizes Lucy Gray has run away because she figured out he betrayed Plinth. In the movie it's sort of an open question whether that is the exact reason or not.

Peter Dinklage's Highbottom is great and probably the best performance in the film. Tom Blyth does a good job as Snow too.

It's a pretty great movie but I think it's the first Hunger Games film where I actually liked the book a little more. 4 stars.