★★★

The persistent problem posed by prequels is the inherent need of each to justify its own existence outwit commercial appeal. It is a rare prequel that’s ever much more than the commodification of an original conceit. Lionsgate’s latest Hunger Games film, released almost a decade after the last, doesn’t quite reach that upper echelon. There’s too strong a feeling of superfluousness in this particular visit to Panem. Few have spent the last eight years yearning for a Coriolanus Snow origins story. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is, no doubt, a handsome and well acted affair but feels long at over two and a half hours.