18 The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

 

 Some spoilers.

This movie has 2 huge problems that doesn't quite make this accessible for audiences who didn't read the book;

You see in the book Snow's internal thoughts and monologue, that his care for Lucy Gray is 75% based on his own survival, how possessive he feels over her to better himself. It's very hard to portray that in a movie without having a voiceover of internal thoughts. 

You do see some other mentors (the rich kids who are still starving probably but) who get lines that Snow could have had about the self-serving attitude they had, but a lot of it is simply "Here's a close up on him, hope you get the idea."

So it works, to the uninitiated audience, as "Oh this boy went bad because of circumstances [also his girlfriend didn't like that he was a murderer]"

 Also, the first 45 minutes is really rushed. This movie is 2hours and 37 minutes. Slow down.

Outside of that, as someone who read and really enjoyed the book, I really enjoyed this. Viola Davis as Volumia Gaul is awesome.

The music and performances are impactful (I do not give a shit what some people have to say online, Rachel Zegler is great).