Cinepals - THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES Spoiler Review!

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Jaby Koay and Achara Kirk watch and review the latest installment of The Hunger Games, "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes". Starring the super unproblematic Rachel Zegler (West Side Story, Shazam! Fury of the Gods) as Lucy Gray Baird, Tom Blyth (The Gilded Age, Billy The Kid) as Coriolanus Snow, Viola Davis (The Woman King, Suicide Squad, The Help) as Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, Avengers Infinity War) as Dean Casca Highbottom and Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Scott Pilgrim vs The World) as Lucky Flickerman. The movie is directed by Francis Lawrence and is based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins.    You can watch the cut down reaction to this movie (and many others) on our YouTube channel https://www.YouTube.com/@Cinepals and the full length reaction is available on our Patreon page https://www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay   SOCIAL MEDIA ~Jaby Koay~ Twitter & Instagram: @Jabykoay @cinepals   ~Achara Kirk~ Twitter & Instagram: @acharakirk

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What's going on, everyone? I'm Jabby Koeh, joined by Achara the Kirk. Hello. We are watching the movie, The Hunger Games, a ballad of... The Ballad. It doesn't matter. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Go ahead. Why are you so pedantic, Achar Kirk? Well, I know how to read. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Bravo. Or Snake Heads. For full transparency, I didn't read the songbird snakes book, but I read the first three books and I watched the first four movies.

I read half of this book. You did? I did. Did you enjoy it? I did. I liked it. I just haven't had a chance to finish it yet, so I don't know how it's going to end. Okay.

Yeah. Here we go. You know, upon watching the trailer for this film, I really wasn't sure what to expect. It seemed cool, but like, I. Honestly, like, my excitement level wasn't at a 10. And I was like, I'll see it when I see it. Even after it came out and people were talking about it, I was like, yeah, you know, whatever. But having watched it now, I appreciated a lot more than I had anticipated that I would.

And I actually like it more. This is a weird way to compare it. I like it more than the second Hunger Games book. Not the movie, the book. I thought that he did a pretty darn good job with having a follow-up story for Hunger Games, even though it's a prequel of all that. but yeah um i you know it was interesting and the the beginning part didn't captivate me you know you you think about the very beginning of hunger games with jennifer lawrence as catnus ever deed and i volunteer

tribute it's like it's all very exciting it's very simple you know who the characters are you get a sense of the world and the scope of things and what's at stake and you're in and here there was just like they were throwing a lot at you at once and all these politics and i'm like okay and i was prepared to hate the movie but once it got going i actually appreciated it a lot more And I think that the acting was top-notch from our main dude. Tom Blythe. Tom Blythe. I don't know who he is.

I don't know where I've seen him before if I have, but I thought he did a fantastic job of leading the film. As far as it goes with Rachel Ziegler, I liked her singing a lot. And I think that her emotions were on point. I didn't know how to feel about the accent. Yeah, I think the accent was kind of tripping me out a little bit as well. because it's almost like the accent was doing her rather than she was doing the accent, you know?

Yeah. And so, I mean, I guess it's a choice, right? Because the idea is that the Covey... I guess they're kind of like Roman eGypsy or something like that, the equivalent for us, right? Yeah. They're musical. They're artistic.

They don't really belong anywhere. They're their own special group of people. Yeah. And so I guess they wanted to differentiate her... her crew from everyone else. But it's almost like, was it really that necessary? I don't know. Yeah, it was just for me,

it was a little bit distracting when it came up. I'm like, oh, there's that again. Yeah. Yeah. And so, Viola Davis, I remember hearing one reviewer, I won't name who, but I remember hearing one reviewer talk about Viola Davis and not loving her performance. I thought she was good.

I mean, Viola Davis is a queen. She really is. She crushes it every time. And so, you know, in the spectrum of Viola Davis performances, is maybe it wasn't her best, but even her worst is better than most. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. Like, I, it's not my favorite Violet Davis performance.

Yeah. I thought it was just, like, very theater. You know, like, it would have worked really well in a theater, right? If you were just watching this as a play. But then in the confines of film, you know, in that medium, it feels quite, like, over the top. I didn't personally care about. Lucy Gray, the character. I only cared about her through Coriolanus.

Coriolanus. I've never, I've only known him as Snow. It's very Shakespeare. Yeah, I've only, I only cared about her through him as an extension of him. I didn't really care about her per se. How did you feel about his character, though? I thought it was great what they did, because very easily you could have turned this into, like, this 101 Dalmatians prequel about Cuella DeVille and how she's really not that bad or, you know, sleeping beauty queen

and she's really not that bad. It's like, I'm so tired of them rewriting history and saying they're not that bad. It's like, no, he found his way into this dark path. And it's like, he murdered Tyrion Lannister. I was like, damn, that's cold. And it's, it made no qualms about it. It wasn't hiding who he becomes, you know. They show you who he is.

And it's like, that's great that they went that direction off of, like, all the experiences I had with the Disney films. Yeah, I think for me, like, bearing in mind that I only have really got through about half the book. So my knowledge of the story kind of ended when they were in the arena. Yeah. Partway, halfway through the arena stuff, I was like, okay, I'm as blind as you right now. But I guess the difference when you're reading the book over when you're watching the movie is there's a lot more nuance, right, that you're able to kind of put into the writing and the characters. And I was having a little bit of a hard time with the way that they portrayed Coriolanus in the beginning

because in the book you always get the sense that like he's really opportunistic. He's out there to kind of he wants to win, which I guess they kind of alluded to here. But the main difference was that in the book, he doesn't view Sejanus as a friend. He just kind of puts up with him because he's a rich boy and he's trying to, you know, stay on his good side because his dad is rich. But he doesn't, he looks down on him and his family, although sometimes he's like really jealous as well because in this they took out because I guess it's not important. But he's jealous of like his relationship with his mother and all of that. And so, I mean, I think overall they did show that in his character, especially towards the end, with all the stuff that he does.

Yeah, I was about to say, if you start there, you get nowhere to go. Yeah, I guess. But I think what I wanted was just to kind of see glimmers of that a little bit more. I can agree with that. Rather than it just kind of coming at the end and being like, oh shit, like he just betrayed his friend. But it's like, no, that is who he was from the start. He's out there. You know, snow always comes on top.

And he's out there to win. They could have dropped more hints along the way. Because it really did, it really didn't feel like he was a bad guy until the one moment where it's like, oh, he's different is when he smashed the kid in the face with the sledgehammer or whatever. Yeah. Then it's like, oh, something's sussed there. But then you're like, oh, but, you know, he's just trying to survive. He wouldn't turn on his friends, right? Right, right.

Yeah. I agree with you. They should have done a better job there. But in, but, you know, the way that Tom Blythe handled it, I thought he, I thought he did a really good job with. with what the material that he was handed. You know, he brought it to life. I think structurally, the story kind of bothered me because I thought that the movie was wrapping up

and I was like, okay, there's one of two ways this goes. Either they wrap it up in like three minutes or it goes on for another 40. And it went on for another 40 minutes. I'm like, okay. And then we got to the forest stuff towards the end of the movie. I'm like, how long do we need this close-up

on Tom Blythe to be? I get it. Damn. Like, he's in his situation. Move forward. Like, they kept, doing these long close-ups, like they just couldn't bring themselves to end the movie. You know, when he was in the cabin, okay, I get it there because you're trying to increase

tension, right? Like a horror movie. Yeah. It's on his face. He's got the gun. What's going to happen? Does she have a gun? Is she going to knife him in the back?

What are we? You know, they're building tension. So I respect that. But in the forest, it's like, why, what is this? Why are we doing 10 minutes of this? Can we move forward with the movie, please? You know what I mean? Yeah.

And I didn't really understand. Rachel Ziegler's or Lucy Gray's thing at the end I mean we saw her run and then I kind of wish we had her perspective on what happened there. Yeah a little bit I mean the way the way I saw it was just that you know

she just upset you know to find out that he had killed someone else and that he lied to her and all of that and so I thought that maybe she was testing him in some weird twisted way that maybe only she understands and then he was just like

I give up. I'm just going to fully lean into being a winner and like, screw you, Lucy Gray. How did you feel about the way was shot? The whole movie? Yeah, just the style. There's a style to it. It's a very, like, the movie has a consistent style. And that style is a very frequent use of wide-angle lenses.

Oh, yeah, I liked it. But I think that sometimes, remember when we were watching One Piece and like sometimes you'd see characters that look all stretched down and fat because the sphericalness of the lens and it's just so wide. I personally am not a huge fan of that look in frequent and use.

And One Piece really pushed my limits with that. I liked One Piece a lot, but it really pushed my limits in terms of the usage of that lens. Here they were doing it and sometimes they're just trying to get the whole crowd, right? Yeah.

But like there were people on the sides of the frame that looked really wide. Even when they showed Tom Blythe, I think at one point, the camera was panning towards him. he looked like wide for a second before it just kind of takes me out of it a little bit I'm like I'm recognizing but that's just because I play with cameras and lenses all the time right so I'm noticing that um and most people don't notice it unless you do it a lot like in one

piece and so I'm just like why is he do why you can back the camera up and use a longer lens and achieve the same you know perspective without people looking stretched out so why are you doing this so it's got in my nerves and then it's the same the same lens up in the person's face sometimes and because it's so wide you know normally you can hide um inconsistencies continuity errors, and there was like a lot of continuity errors in the film, and I'm like, my ADD brain was catching all of them, and I'm like, ah, fuck, okay, shut that off, shut it off. Like, you know, like, I'm trying not to pay attention to that stuff. I'm trying to just stay engaged with the characters, because even my favorite director, Martin Scorsese will have a lot of continuity errors in his movies. And so I try to be forgiving of it in favor of, what is the emotional content going on here? And, you know, as far as Cori Annolis, Cori, Coralinas. Snow. Corrio. As far as he goes, like, I enjoyed the journey with him. I don't know. Lucy Gray is just like, she's gray. It's just like not really, I wasn't connected with her. No, I wasn't true. I think I really wanted to be more. Like, I kind of thought that I might feel a little bit more emotional going into the movie.

Just because, like, I really love a nice love story, you know, and then. And then when it's tragic, I get even more upset, right? Like, I get really into it. But this I was just kind of like, oh, okay, I just kind of felt like I was just watching people and I wasn't superly emotionally invested in them. Even though, like you said, you know, Tom Blythe as Cori Elena Snow, I was like, yeah, you know, he's doing, he's doing a good job. Like, he's carrying the movie really well because it is his story and it is an interesting, I guess, villain origin story for, he's President Snow, right? I know he's got a high-ranking position. Yeah, he's super high-ranking.

Tom Blithe is too handsome. Really? Yeah, he's pretty good. It's very annoying. Yeah. I was like, I was kind of happy when he shaved his head. I'm like, he still look good, you fucker. God damn it.

Like, dang. So jelly. Why do you have to have a nice shaped skull as well? Exactly. I mean, overall, I thought that it was actually a good adaptation of the book. Because the book is... What you read of it, yes. Big, yeah.

like and and from the parts that I knew I was like oh I can see why you kind of took out these things although they were super interesting to me like there was a whole thing in the book about the girl that got bitten by the snake she got really sick and then she started like growing these scales yeah on her body and I was just like really interested in that and like her whole personality changed and she became like really just violent kind of And I was like, oh, they took that out. But I guess that's not important. That's like a whole little interesting side story that probably is really fun for readers,

but is just distracting in a movie. And so I thought that, you know, it was nicely streamlined. And I guess that that is also because Suzanne Collins was, you know, so much a part of this. Actually, executive produced this and everything. And so it just makes sense. Do you feel like this was best as a film or would have been better as a show? I think it could have been a show. I wondered about that along the way.

I'm like, is there more we could have gotten out of this? Because it felt like, unfortunately, the person on the chopping block was Rachel Ziegler's character. You know, it's just like, we didn't get to do enough with her. I didn't even know why she cared about that dude that she was risking her life for, the one who got the rabies. Like, did they really properly establish that? I guess for the movie's sake, it was like, oh, because they're from the same district. And he was nice to her. He protected her from the bats and got rabies as a result.

The issue with that is we didn't see it. Exactly. And it's like, you got to show, not tell. And that's a very easy thing to show instead of tell, you know, or both. But it was following the structure of the book, because in the book, right, they don't show it. She just tells him. She tells Coriolanus later on. That's okay in a book.

Yeah. It's okay in a book because it's all your imagination anyway. But in a movie, it's a visual medium. You have to show. Sure. You know? And like, that could have easily been like, I don't know, like a flashback over,

the visuals showing while she's talking or something. There's many ways you can do that. Yeah, I just didn't care about him. And when she was risking her life for him, I'm like, what are you doing? Just run. Run. I think it's supposed to show her character, right? That she's loyal.

Sure. And so, yeah, it did a good job of showing that because we knew, you know, she was very right or die for Coriolanus until she found out that he lied to her. That lie. That lie was so bad. The third person was me, I killed myself. The old me. The old me. But there's nothing that he could have said. Do you know what I mean? Like, that was a pretty slick lie. But there was nothing that he could have said that I would have convinced her. It's like, what, three? Three. Three? Really? Well, I guess what's really going to bake your noodle is, you know, would she have run away if he told the truth? I think so.

Yeah. Because she, he betrayed a friend. And I think, you know, for her. For her moral code. Well, he did it for himself. Yeah, he did it for himself. Yeah. Because he did that before any of that happened.

So, you know, that was, that was just lucky on his part that, you know, they managed to. Are there more books coming? I don't know. Like, this felt like. very kind of one and done. Yeah. You know, it's like, nope, we did the story. But Rachel Ziegler's character is out there, you know.

Potentially. Or maybe she's dead. I'm Jabby Kaua. This is... A chara Kirk. Peace out.