'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes' review: Overlong return to Panem

You know nothing, Coriolanus Snow. — Photos: Handout

It’s been eight years since the release of the last Hunger Games film, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2, which means enough time has passed that it feels appropriate to return to the well that produced big box-office dollars for Lionsgate, and made star Jennifer Lawrence a household name.

It also helps that author Suzanne Collins released a prequel novel in 2020, The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which explores the young adult life of Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president of Panem played by Donald Sutherland in the prior (though chronologically later) films.