When I first heard the prequel novel to The Hunger Games was being turned into a movie, I did not think much of it. I am not a massive fan of The Hunger Games franchise. I enjoyed the movies from the original trilogy but have never read the books, so I went into the film with zero expectations.
The film was released on Nov. 17, 2023, and was immediately a box-office hit, making $44 million on its opening weekend.
After seeing endless videos and posts about the movie, some filled with complaints about how it missed vital parts of the book and some with praise about the cast, I took it upon myself to go and watch the film.
Based on the book, the movie is about the backstory of Panem’s President, Coriolanus Snow, portrayed by Tom Blyth, during the tenth annual Hunger Games. The film is split into three parts: Part One, ‘The Mentor,’ Part Two, ‘The Prize,’ and Part Three, ‘The Peacekeeper’. Each section shows Snow at a different point in his character development.
The movie started after what felt like 45 minutes of commercials. The first scene is of Snow and his cousin Tigris searching the capital for food during the war started by rebels in the districts. I was confused. With my knowledge from the earlier movies, I thought Snow had grown up in a wealthy household.
Once the opening scene is over, Part One ‘The Mentor’ starts and you get introduced to the Hunger Games. During that year’s games, many new ideas were developed. Capital Academy students are mentors to the tributes competing in the games, viewers can send donations to the tributes, and finally, the mentor whose tribute wins the games wins a large sum of money. We can see that that’s Snow’s only motivation to win the games is to win the money. However, this changes when he meets his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, from District Twelve.
During Part Two, the real action begins. The 10th Hunger Games begin. This part was my personal favorite because Snow starts to go a little crazy during this part. Until this point in the movie, I thought that he didn’t actually care about Lucy Gray and that it was all just an act. I was wrong. It is quite evident that this is the part where Snow starts to feel fond of Lucy Gray. I mean, he is willing to do anything to make sure she wins the games, even if it means risking his own life and status within the capital to do so. Snow uses his power within the capital to give her advantages against the other victims. Seeing how much he cared for her was cute, especially after thinking he was only in it for the money. Snow had another reason to win the games: to keep Lucy Gray alive.
But, in the final part of the movie, Snow is punished for cheating. He gets banished to District 12 to serve as a Peacekeeper to keep order in the Districts. During this part of the movie, we start to see antagonist President Snow from the original trilogy, whom we all know and do not love. It is quite difficult not to love him, though, as he is fairly enjoyable to look at. In this part, you also see references to the trilogy with Lucy Gray singing ‘The Hanging Tree.’ Personally, this was my least favorite only because watching Snow’s journey as a Peacekeeper was fairly boring.
In the film’s final five minutes, we see Snow entirely become the future President Snow that we know him as. After being pardoned, he returns to the capital and starts attending the university under the Gamemaker, Dr. Gual.
Overall, I thought the film was great. As someone who came in not having much knowledge, it was cool to see how it played out and the references to the trilogy, such as the first Hunger Games host being related to the host in the trilogy, among other things.
The film also showed everything it took to turn Snow into who he is in the trilogy, and it was interesting to see his transformation. Not including my movie-going experience, I rate the movie 5 out of 5 stars. It did a great job capturing all aspects of the storyline without focusing too much on Snow’s character development. If you were expecting a short and sweet little film, this movie is not for you, and you would probably say the same thing my dad did as we walked back to our car: “That movie was long as hell.”