It’s time for the big prequel to the classic Hunger Games story. Since we already know how corrupt the place is, you can assume that this’ll be more of a sad story right from the start. The movie does not disappoint in this regard as it is all quite dreary for most of its run. The film does a good job of not being over the top gritty though. The kills don’t tend to be too bloody with the wort of the wounds effectively being off screen. It’s certainly not a feel good movie but one that serves as a cautionary tale to be careful who you trust.

The movie starts by introducing us to Snow who pretends that he is one of the spoiled rich kids in order to survive at a prestigious school for long enough to win an award and actually get rich. His family was rich for a time so nobody suspects anything but this year there is a wrinkle in the plan. The Hunger Games have not been getting great ratings so they are spicing things up with the mentor system. Snow will have to try and make sure that his tribute, Lucy, survives through the tournament at least long enough to prove that he is the best mentor. Can he pull this off or are the games too rigged for that?

There are definitely quite a few things against Snow here, one of them is the teacher. This guy can’t stand Snow and openly says that he will do his best to wreck the guy’s life. When that is the person standing in your way, it is difficult to win any kind of prize. Fortunately the game master is on Snow’s side so he still has a chance. Thing is, he has to try and connect with Lucy which will be difficult since the tributes naturally dislike the people from the capital.

The tributes are given no choice but to compete in these games with their whole families held hostage in the meantime so they can’t even properly resist. If they make the wrong move then they will all be destroyed. Meanwhile, nearly all of the tributes are doomed to die anyway so it is a really rough system. It shows how barbaric the future state of the world is as everyone just watches these games and treats it like a normal thing. Ratings have gone down which is a good thing but it’s definitely not enough to shut the whole thing down.

The toughest part about a dystopia film like this is finding someone to root for. After all, most of the characters are going to be downright antagonistic right from the start. You’re not really rooting for Snow because he is pretty bad himself. Yeah he gets some sympathy points for not actually being rich and just doing his best to hang in there but at the same time he’s been living the life for so long that he may as well be one of those rich kids. Snow plays up to whoever has power and you can tell that he will not be a revolutionary.

Snow gradually gets worse and worse as the film goes on. Not everything is his fault but a lot of the situations are ones that he gets himself into. It’s hard for anyone to make a difference in this kind of world but in the end Snow definitely didn’t do much to change the world. If anything, his ideas for a more cruel Hunger Games may have made things worse. Sure, the combatants will get some better privileges in the lead up to the games but at the same time this will make the games run longer which has a rougher long term effect.

Initially I figured the games would be most of the climax but surprisingly there is quite a bit of story even after that. We get to see more of the lives in the District and how rough those are. Even when things seem happy, there is the underlining fear of knowing that any year you could be chosen for the Hunger Games. You can’t truly live a happy life with the specter of death right behind you like that. It’s just not possible and will only make things rougher and rougher for them all.

Sejanus is the only guy who really tries to make a difference. On one hand yo can respect that but he always does so in the sloppiest ways possible. The guy ends up looking gullible and slow on the uptake. He’s not good at keeping secrets and his half hearted plans don’t help anyone out long term. So he still beats Snow because it’s better to have a bad plan than no plan but you’d think that this guy could have done a lot better. He wins bravery points for talking back in such a dictatorship but couldn’t do much more than that.

Meanwhile for Lucy, she’s not a bad heroine but also seems to not be the best at strategy. I don’t see how she could allow herself to be close to Snow at all considering the circumstances. Even with the actions Snow did during the games, you would always assume that he is against you. The odds of this guy actually being a good person would just be near 0%. He was keeping lots of secrets and lies the whole time after all. Fortunately she eventually finds enough out to get out of there but otherwise that whole plot felt a bit forced to me. In the actual games she did well to last a while but definitely took a whole lot of risks. She wasn’t quite as memorable and hungry for battle as Katniss.

One weakness for prequels is that you roughly know all of the story beats that are going to happen so it does put a lot of extra pressure on the movie to execute the plot extremely well. Any mistakes will feel extra heavy as a result of already knowing the layout. I would say the film does a fine job. It does drag on a little at different points but it still a good movie. You will stay interested but I do think cutting out maybe 15-20 minutes would have made a good difference here. The length just doesn’t make sense with a much shorter Hunger Games like what we saw here.

Overall, A lot of the characters seem a bit gullible here like one guy drinking from a vial dropped off with a bunch of other stuff from someone who clearly despised him. It may not seem like a big thing but in such a cutthroat world, you’d imagine that everyone would have their guards up at all times. The same thing goes for the student who was murdered at the zoo or Sejanus in his various plights. The characters don’t always act like they’re in a sudden death world. You could say that they were simply too sheltered in the rich world and lacked common sense but at the same time that can only go so far. Well, suspend your disbelief and just follow the story along. It’s still interesting enough to get you past the main issues.

Overall 6/10