The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes is the perfect masterpiece haunting origin tale showing the downfall of president snow. What a masterful job at taking the book and adapting it to the screen. The cinematography is excellent.  Tom Blyth is a star and Rachel Zegler embodies Lucy Gray. 

What an experience, the whole theater was at the border of their seats, quiet, just admiring the movie. The story, the acting, the music, the references, everything was just perfect.

First and foremost, I have to compliment Rachel Zegler. Her acting as Lucy Gray literally felt like she ripped her straight off of the paper. She was the most perfect Lucy Gray and I don’t think anyone else could have done her as much justice as Rachel did. Even more than Rachel’s acting, is her incredible singing. We all know Rachel is a fantastic singer, but her voice in this movie is her voice like I have never heard it before. The fact that she sang everything live on set too… she is just such a powerhouse of an actress and I am so proud to see her thrive in this project. Definitely her best performance to date in my opinion. 

Next, I have to highlight the fantastic Tom Blyth for his portrayal of Snow. He did an amazing job of taking what Donald Sutherland did with the character, and adding his own twist to it and making it his own. Tom managed to highlight both the charismatic and psychotic parts of Snow. His performance stood out most to me in the third act of the film, especially the scene in the forest with Lucy Gray. The way that Tom was able to bring all of Snow’s inner monologue that we get in the book into his facial expressions was truly stunning. He killed it in this role. 

So many more things in this movie that I could just rave about. The performances from all the other actors were fantastic across the board. Not to mention, the fantastic score. So many things and people came together to make this movie suck us right back into the world of Panem, and it really felt like we never left! It was a gorgeous movie with gorgeous performances and settings and costumes and music by Olivia Rodrigo and such.

This has to be my favorite in the franchise since the original nostalgic 2012 film with Jennifer Lawrence as the iconic songbird mockingjay herself Katniss Everdeen. Overall this is a total hit for all audience goers and movie fans alike do not miss it on the big screen.