Review: The 'Hunger Games' prequel is overly busy and can't escape the long shadow of Katniss Everdeen

The prequel “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” rises and falls on one important question: Is “The Hunger Games,” the movie series spawned from author Suzanne Collins’ dystopian young-adult novels, a viable franchise without the presence of the magnetic Jennifer Lawrence, who became a star playing tribute-turned-rebellion leader Katniss Everdeen?

Ultimately, the answer is “no,” but there’s a lot of opportunity along the way for new stars Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler to make their presence felt.

This adaptation of Collins’ novel is set 64 years before Katniss first competed in the games. Then, Panem’s districts were being barely held together by the ruling Capitol’s occupation army, euphemistically called “Peacekeepers.” Back at the Capitol, they’re getting ready for the 10th annual Hunger Games, though the designer of the Games, Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) — a mad scientist with different colored eyes and a shock of frizzed white hair — is concerned that the ratings are dwindling, for the lack of spectacle.

An ambitious young student in the Academy has some suggestions. He’s Coriolanus Snow (played by Blyth), and he’s motivated to win a prestigious school prize so he, his grandma’am (Fionnula Flanagan) and his sister Tigris (Hunter Schafer) don’t get evicted from the home Coriolanus’ famous father, Gen. Crassus Snow, built for them before the Dark Days.

The prize usually goes to the best Academy student, but the dean, Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) — credited as the co-creator of the Hunger Games — has a new wrinkle. The prize, and all the money, will go to the student who is the best mentor to one of the 24 tributes chosen from the Districts to compete in the Games. 

Snow finds out his trainee is Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, from “West Side Story”), a feisty singer from District 12. She impresses the audiences at the Reaping, the day the tributes are selected, by singing a rebellious folk song, This inspires Snow to suggest to Dr. Gaul some changes to boost the ratings — to appeal to audience attention for not just a fighter, but a personality.

Director Francis Lawrence, who directed all but the first of the “Hunger Games” movies, takes a screenplay (credited to Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt) that hews quite closely to the book. That’s a problem, both in the second of the three acts, which spends too much time in the Games, and the third act, which takes us away from the Capitol altogether. Both choices sap the tension from the narrative, and contribute to a bloated running time of more than 2 1/2 hours.

There’s a lot of time spent with what feels like generational foreshadowing. We know who Snow grows up to become — he was the president played menacingly by Donald Sutherland in the series — so there’s not a lot of suspense there. Jason Schwartzman gets some laughs as Lucretus “Lucky” Flickertail, a weatherman-turned-emcee (and, it’s heavily suggested, the father of Stanley Tucci’s flamboyant character in the originals). Unfortunately, those moments mostly remind us of what the previous movies had that this one lacks: A drive of its own.

Blyth is a solid actor, and will be really interesting when his pretty-boy phase is behind him. We know Ziegler’s talents from “West Side Story,” and here she gets to demonstrate her singing and her charisma — even when hamstrung with an unfortunate choice of a hillbilly accent.

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” has a decent number of exciting, breathtaking moments, as the Games play themselves out. But they can’t sustain that intensity for the full movie, which finds itself borrowing from the past — even dropping a “Katniss” reference that feels forced. The odds, alas, are not in this movie’s favor.

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‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, November 17, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for strong violent content and disturbing material. Running time: 157 minutes.