10 Recent Movies Ruined By Their Third Act
6. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Though the bulk of the recent Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was actually considerably better than expected, it all fell apart during that excessive epilogue of a third reel.
The actual Hunger Games conclude at the end of the second act, with almost the entire final hour of the movie taking a sharp left-turn to follow Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who as punishment for helping his tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) win the Games, is forced to work as a Peacekeeper.
The pacing for this portion of the film is all over the map - the early Peacekeeper scenes are aggressively slow, but the climactic confrontation between Snow and Lucy meanwhile feels far too rushed, especially as it signals Snow's transformation into the villain we better know him as.
This final hour really makes it tough to go back and rewatch the movie, because it's basically a leaden albatross hanging around its neck.