The Hunger Games: Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) Film Review.

Years before he becomes the tyrannical president of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow remains the last hope for his fading lineage. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow becomes alarmed when he’s assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird from District 12. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and political savvy, they race against time to ultimately reveal who’s a songbird and who’s a snake.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes is a prequel to The Hunger Games (2012) and is the fifth installment to the series.

The Hunger Games series was the only young adult dystopian series back in the 2010s that I actually really liked and perhaps the only one to go on and still have a huge amount of relevancy.The series did have it’s issues with Mockingjay Part One (2014) being the weakest of the films and Mockingjay Part Two (2015) while not being a bad film still felt a bit rushed and not quite up to the quality of The Hunger Games (2012) or Catching Fire (2013). So it was quite interesting to see a prequel be released 8 years later, we have seen how badly prequels can be with very popular book film adaptions. The Fantastic Beasts series simply does not compare to the Harry Potter films and The Hobbit movies (I understand there’s a fanbase for these movies I was just not a fan of them at all) are completely outclassed by The Lord Of The Rings films.

Luckily Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes ends up being quite shockingly fantastic with several contributing factors. Let’s get the obvious out of the way that everyone seems to be talking about the most…the performances. The acting has always been quite strong in The Hunger Games films but in Songbirds & Snakes they kick it up a notch and the cast really delivers in their respective role.

Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow is both fascinating and terrifying we get to see him slowly but surely turn into the man he goes on to be for the rest of the series. We get a very interesting backstory that is filled with many dramatic and character moments that are incredibly investing, it’s some really surprising character work combined with Blyth’s acting that really makes his performance stand out in every single way possible.

Rachel Zegler once again hits it out of the park and really shows how talented she is as an actress, Zegler plays Lucy Gray which admittedly was some big shoes to fill since everyone compares the importance of the character to Katniss Evergreen who was played by Jennifer Lawrence in the 4 sequels. However Zegler really stands out here on her own, much like Blyth’s performance Zegler gets a lot of character moments to really make her shine. The songs she sings are beautiful and really contribute to the film’s atmosphere (something I will get into a bit later), Lucy Gray is such a fascinating character that the viewer still has many questions about even when the film ends, the film manages to tell the viewer the information they need about Lucy Gray but keeps just enough from the viewer to wonder about her.

The rest of the cast are just as fantastic, Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul is intimidating and really sets the scene as soon as she comes on screen. Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom and Josh Andreas Rivera and Sejanus Plinth are both fantastic. Jason Schwartzman who plays Lucretius or “Lucky” Flickerman who is basically the announcer of The Hunger Games, he gives such a darkly (I say darkly because the games themselves are brutal here) funny performance that doesn’t overshadow the character moments at all. Finally there’s Hunter Schafer who might not get a whole lot of screentime but delivers such a charming and incredibly likable performance that her being casted as Tigris Snow was such a smart casting move.

The atmosphere of the film is truly brilliant, something a lot of these young adult dystopian adaption films seem to forget is atmosphere the type where you actually believe this is a very horrifying future and Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes absolutely nails that down from the very beginning. You can feel the fear of the characters and just how incredibly messed up the future has become, when you combine that with the writing that is quite honestly some of if not THE very best this franchise has very had. You have yourself such an engaging story that really pulls out everything it has.

The world building is truly fascinating here, for a prequel the film really expands on the world of The Hunger Games and even makes some really important connections from the films that would come later, each of the film’s locations has personality too them and a story to tell. Which the film does beautifully with the cinematography, character moments and the pacing which while could be a bit much for some (157 minutes long) I however do think the pacing really uses the running time quite well to give each of the characters time to shine and really highlight how dangerous the world is.

Finally there’s The Hunger Games itself and it’s quite a brutal one. The film really makes the most use it can with the PG-13 rating and it ultimately works, there’s tons of emotional moments during the games as well as character bits that are actually gut punching at times. Sure the games might be a bit shorter this time around, however it makes up for that with very suspenseful atmosphere as well as being incredibly strong from a story perspective and thematically.

Overall The Hunger Games: Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes is one of the best films of the franchise, heck there’s even an argument to be made that it’s the absolute best of the series. It’s one of those rare prequels that actually adds something special to the franchise and explores even more that the other films really didn’t. I cannot stress enough how fantastic the acting really is here, it’s some of the best acting of the year and completely matches everything that the film goes for.

The Hunger Games: Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes is available in theaters.

10/10 A+

Loki Season 2 series review

Loki works with Mobius M. Mobius, Hunter B-15, and other members of the Time Variance Authority to navigate the multiverse in order to find Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes.

As much as I have criticized Marvel in recent years (especially this year) I will give them this, they took a much riskier choice to have Loki be the first Disney+ Marvel series to have a second season. They could have easily went with a much safer choice such as Hawkeye or Falcon and The Winter Solider. I will also say that where as my opinions have changed on a lot of the previous Disney+ Marvel shows (not really in a good way). My opinion on the first season of Loki has been consistent, it’s by far my favorite of the bunch and was fantastic. Loki season 2 is quite fantastic and keeps a lot of what made the first season work so well and while it does have a few missteps along the way, for the most part it really is quite great.

The cast is really what makes this season work mostly, Tom Hiddleston once again shows his master work as Loki and really wraps up the character development Loki has gone through in the MCU. There’s several moments during the final minutes of the season that really shows this in such a beautiful way and quite honestly the most powerful moments I’ve seen from these MCU shows. Owen Wilson returns as Mobius and much like in the first season he is quite great here, his character sort of loses a bit of spotlight towards the end of the season, however during the season’s first few episodes we get to see the bond of Mobius and Loki grow even more. There’s a lot of moments where they are just interacting like regular people it’s a decently grounded approach that was a surprise yet very welcomed one.

Ke Huy Quan was a very smart addition to the cast, almost immediately when his character Ouroboros shows up the viewer automatically is intrigued by his character. He might not get some deep and rich character development here, but what makes the character work is mostly Quan’s exciting and lovable performance that you really grow attached to. Jonathan Majors is solid as the variants of Kang, granted he’s not my absolute favorite performance because I do think the cast surrounding him is much better. However there’s no denying that he does a solid job here.

Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie while great gets put into the backseat this season, which is a bit confusing as to why that is. Since the first season really did make it seem like she was going to have a much bigger role later down the line, she really is not given a whole lot to really do here unfortunately and a lot of her strong character traits are seemingly absent here.

Loki season 2 is much more dialogue than it is action and it definitely works in the series favor, if it was going to be one show that has a season where it would be much more dialogue than action it would be this one. Granted there are moments where the pacing can be a bit too slow and doesn’t really push the show at a great pace, however the show benefits from a lot of decently strong dialogue and acting that captures the atmosphere the show is going for.

The main criticism here is a lot of the characters take a backseat towards the show’s final few episodes, which I completely get it the show is supposed to wrap up the character development Loki has gone throughout the MCU. Having that said it is very noticeable that the characters start to become more like cheerleaders for Loki (especially Sylvie), having that said that does not take away from the powerful moment at the end where you can really feel just how important Loki really was all of these years. It’s just a bit of a shame that backseats had to be taken.

Overall Loki season 2 is quite strong, it might not be as great as the first season. But there’s still a real lot to like about the show!

Loki season 2 is available on Disney+

8/10 B+

Fingernails (2023)

Anna and Ryan have found true love, and it’s proven by a controversial new technology. There’s just one problem, as Anna still isn’t sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute and meets Amir.

I get what they are going for here with Fingernails but unfortunately I don’t think it quite works as well as Yorgos Lanthimos’s films or Charlie Kaufman’s films. Despite that however the movie does have it’s positives.

The main one being the performances, Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White are all quite fantastic and deliver some very solid performances that are what keep this movie afloat. The film is well made and the atmosphere is definitely there with some scenes in particular being quite hard to watch (fingernail scenes) so there’s definitely something there.

The main issue here is Fingernails lacks a lot of strong character moments and doesn’t use it’s premise to it’s full potential. Throughout the movie we are told things about the characters but we are never given any real strong moments, the chemistry is strong but the lack of doing anything with it is what pushes this movie to the ground. There’s a few ideas here that the movie gets across fine enough but a lot of it really does come off as trying to be Lanthimos or Kaufman.

It’s a bit frustrating because you would think there would be a lot to say about Fingernails a movie that was clearly trying to say far more than what was presented, but unfortunately that really isn’t the case here. It’s a movie that wants to say something but doesn’t quite know how to really say it. When the cast are given moments to shine they really hit it out of the park, when it comes to everything else it hits a brick wall.

Fingernails is available on Apple TV+

5/10 C

Foe (2023)

Hen and Junior’s quiet life is thrown into turmoil when an uninvited stranger shows up at their door with a startling proposal.

The main question to ask when talking about Foe is “what happened here?” On the surface this looks like something with a lot of potential you have Garth Davis director of Lion (2016) in the director’s chair plus Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal in the leading roles. The plot sounded genuinely interesting as well, it had all the right ingredients to make for a very interesting sci-fi thriller…that’s sadly not the case here.

Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal truly give it their all with their performances which are hands down the best part of the movie, there’s some genuinely strong moments with their chemistry that almost feel accidental due to how quickly the writing completely falls off a cliff. The setup is decent enough, the atmosphere (at least at the beginning) had this eerie feeling that the movie was going for.

However once the actual plot kicks in the movie starts to become a way too unnecessary convoluted plot that already lost the viewer due to how slow the movie moves, it’s such a chore to sit through and with absolutely no payoff you start to question what exactly was the point. The screenplay doesn’t do the movie any favors, while there are a few decent enough moments the rest of it really does not give Ronan and Mescal a lot of room to use their incredible talent.

Finally the movie itself is incredibly nonsensical even with the rules the movie establishes it goes against it’s own logic and it’s messaging is absolutely confused. Foe is by far the most disappointing movie I’ve seen so far this year, there was so much potential to make something incredibly great here.

Foe is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

No One Will Save You is a thrilling film about grief and guilt

Brynn finds solace within the walls of the home where she grew up until she’s awakened one night by strange noises from unearthly intruders.

This has probably already been said one hundred times already but No One Will Save You is one of the biggest surprises in 2023, it’s Brian Duffield’s second film he previously directed Spontaneous (2020) which funnily enough was also a huge surprise and ended up being one of my favorites of 2020.

Kaitlyn Dever gives such a powerful performance here, the film itself doesn’t have a lot of dialogue it’s like if you mixed A Quiet Place, The Twilight Zone and 10 Cloverfield Lane together to get this very intense thrilling squished together space. And Kaitlyn Dever absolutely nails it she really brings this powerhouse performance that manages to tell the story through her emotions and actions, it’s truly some impressive work from her that is one of her best performances to date.

The film itself is an alien invasion movie that is much smaller scale and that definitely fits quite well with what the film is going for, remember how I said in my review for Jordan Peele’s Nope that it had a large epic scale too it? Well that’s the opposite here and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all (far from it.) in the context of the story the much smaller scale absolutely fits especially with the camera angles and thrilling atmosphere involved.

There’s a lot of different interpretations that people can make from No One Will Save You a big one being grief and guilt plus how Brynn (played by Kaitlyn Dever) confronts it, the aliens have very humanoid mannerisms that can be a reflection of people from Brynn’s past. It’s truly a very interesting approach to the subject that I’m even surprised was taken. The aliens aren’t even the center focus they are more of a symbol to represent Brynn’s journey and having to overcome that journey.

I highly recommend going into No One Will Save You knowing as little as possible, it’s not going to be for everyone but if it does sound like something you would like I highly recommend giving this one a shot.

No One Will Save You is available on Hulu!

9/10 A

Jules a heartwarming story with wonderful acting!

A man’s quiet life gets upended when a UFO crashes in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania. As he befriends the mysterious extraterrestrial, things start to get complicated when two neighbours discover it and the government quickly closes in.

Jules is yet another pretty big surprise from 2023, I’m sure there’s people out there that will write Jules off as being an ET clone but with old people instead of children, but that’s really not the case. Sure it does have a few similarities with ET but how the films approach the premise are completely different.

Ben Kingsley, Jane Curtin and Harriet Sansom Harris are all fantastic here, they all give hilarious performances with some genuinely touching moments that will make you instantly love these characters. If there’s a theme here it’s being kind or nice, throughout the film we see Milton (played by Ben Kingsley), Joyce (played by Jane Curtin) and Sandy (played by Harriet Sansom Harris) treat Jules (played by Jane Quon) like family and while they do question where Jules came from that doesn’t bother them all that much.

Jane Quon is absolutely incredible here, her performance as Jules is genuinely funny and manages to express emotions without really showing them, there’s something genuinely sweet about Milton, Sandy or Joyce talking about their issues or what’s on their mind to Jules. While Jules might not fully understand what they are saying, but you can tell Jules genuinely cares about the three and actually does help the three learn a bit more about themselves and actually does help them with their issues.

As I said before the approach is much different from ET, Jules is a much smaller film that isn’t quite as big in scale, but that ultimately benefits the film in the long run, it’s a smaller story that really focuses on building it’s characters into something truly special. Characters that the viewer can easily connect with, combine that with excellent acting and writing that is so charming and you have yourself a simple yet very effective story.

Jules is available on all VOD platforms.

9/10 A

The Pod Generation has great ideas but weak execution.

In the not-so-distant future, amid a society madly in love with technology, tech giant Pegazus offers couples the opportunity to share their pregnancies via detachable artificial wombs or pods. So begins Rachel and Alvy’s wild ride to parenthood in this brave new world.

Seems like a running theme with some movies I’ve watched recently has been having good ideas but either poorly executing them or not taking them very far. That’s definitely the case for The Pod Generation.

Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor are both solid in the leading roles and are actually the reason why I watched this movie in the first place, the movie presents a lot of ideas with varying degrees of success. It’s a satirical approach to childbirth there’s a bit of comedy that got a few laughs out of me. But the main focus asking moral questions that the film brings up, plus there’s actually some decent world building that i’m actually quite surprised even happened in movie.

Unfortunately a lot of the movies ideas just don’t go anywhere, it’s very surface level at best and the characters aren’t written very well at all. It almost feels like the movie is holding back from going even bigger, the ending while not bad sets itself up to be something huge but ultimately acts like someone retracting a statement midway through the speech or letter they are discussing.

It’s odd, you have some genuinely solid world building that actually does take time to discuss what this world is and how it’s different than our’s but it forgets to discuss almost everything else. It’s a bit of a shame because the movie itself isn’t terrible, there’s a lot of strong moments and the performances from Clarke and Ejiofor as I said before really make this movie. But sadly this is a very forgettable one.

The Pod Generation is available on all VOD platforms.

5/10 C

Landscape With Invisible Hand (2023)

Two teens hatch a risky plan to save their families when an occupying alien species leaves most of the planet impoverished and unemployed.

Landscape With Invisible Hand is Cory Finley’s third film his previous two being Throughbreds (2017) and Bad Education (2019) two incredible films with the former being one of the best films of the 2010s. Unfortunately Landscape With Invisible Hand does not reach the same level of greatness as Finley’s previous two films even on it’s own the movie is a mishmash of interesting ideas done with painfully dull execution.

The performances from Asante Blackk and Kylie Rogers are both solid and are by far what carries the movie to the finish line, Tiffany Haddish gives a fine enough performance (definitely one of her best in awhile) and the side arc that the movie explores with Haddish’s character is one of the brighter spots of the movie. Even if the end result doesn’t end with a huge bang like the movie thinks it’s going to.

There’s a lot of ideas here such as exploring class inequality, traditional family roles, race and art in general but none of it is really explored in greater detail. Instead they all sort of get lost in the movie’s absurd worldbuilding that ultimately doesn’t amount to anything compelling. The aliens themselves look neat but we are really never given a lot of background about them, it doesn’t help that the tone becomes incredibly inconsistent. One moment there will be an attempt talking about one of the topics I mentioned and the next will be one of the aliens attempting to crack a joke.

The pacing is what really hurts the movie the most, it’s way too slow and only draws out as long as it can because it wants to shove as many ideas as possible yet doesn’t touch most of them in greater detail. It’s a bit of a shame because I do think Landscape With Invisible Hand could definitely work, but as it stands it’s a very messy Sci-Fi movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be and is overall very forgettable.

Landscape With Invisible Hand is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

They Cloned Tyrone is a fun take on the Sci-Fi genre.

A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy.

They Cloned Tyrone is a very interesting film that I really can’t help but respect, even if the movie’s ideas are not executed perfectly and it does slip up a bit during the middle of the film. There was clearly a whole lot of creativity, passion and fun put into it.

For starters the cast is excellent, John Boyega continues to show how incredibly talented he really is with tons of memorable scenes here that really drive home the point of how fantastic he is. Jamie Foxx is of course really strong here and Teyonah Parris is incredibly fun especially the interactions between her and Jamie Foxx their presence is fantastic and really gives the characters so much more power when it comes to writing.

The film is beautifully shot and directed, They Cloned Tyrone really serves as a quite strong directional debut for director Juel Taylor. Who really gives these three characters some striking character development that really is beautiful, the film definitely has some inspirations from Get Out (although this one is a lot more comedic) and A Clockwork Orange, Juel Taylor makes these inspirations into his own and brings some creative ideas to the table, on top of that he brings the sci-fi genre into the mix which while does get a bit overstuffed at times is executed quite nicely.

Criticisms are mostly the middle of the movie being a bit too predictable and draws out a bit, the story can get a bit convoluted with combining too many ideas at once. However when the final act rolls around the movie gets back on track with tons of fun moments and some more great character development as well.

They Cloned Tyrone might not be one of my favorite films of this year but is a quite solid one and one that I do recommend giving a look.

They Cloned Tyrone is available on Netflix.

7/10 B

Gray Matter is yet another tired X-Men clone.

Aurora has known all her life from her mother that the superhuman abilities they have also make them dangerous. Now, Aurora will discover if her mother was speaking the truth on one fateful and fatal night.

Gray Matter comes the documentary series Project Greenlight a series in which filmmakers are given a chance to direct their first feature film. I’ve seen some of the series but not a whole lot to say that I’m an expert on it. Anyway there isn’t a whole lot to comment about Gray Matter as a lot of elements used in this movie have been done far better else where.

Mia Isaac is quite fantastic here and once again shows she has a really strong future as an actress, she easily steals the show even when the script is begging to be better written. The rest of the cast aren’t too bad either but Isaac just runs circles around all of them.

Honestly the major problem here is this is just another X-Men clone combined with the young adult sci-fi genre, which isn’t necessarily a terrible idea but like many other clones this one just doesn’t do a whole lot with it’s premise. A lot of it is beat by beat “parent tries to protect kid who has powers or is just learning them” type of stuff that really doesn’t go into further detail. The world building is nonexistent and really doesn’t even try due to a script that doesn’t give the movie the time to do so.

In fact the script gives the movie barely anytime to even use it’s own ideas, it gives a very confused backstory, explains what the powers are in a very messy way and introduces characters yet doesn’t give them a whole lot to do or make them compelling. It’s a bit of a shame because a movie like Gray Matter can work it just comes down to storytelling and world building which the movie is neither good at.

Gray Matter is available on HBO Max (MAX)

3/10 D-