As somebody who has watched all of “The Hunger Games” movies prior to the newest one without reading any of the books, I found the movie to be very interesting but slightly difficult to understand in the first hour of watching. In my opinion, the pacing of the movie was amazingly done and I liked the fact that they showed what happened after the games ended, in comparison to previous movies in the franchise that didn’t give us any idea of what happened after.

I was a little skeptical about how I would stay interested, considering the movie was almost three hours long. But I was proven wrong once I realized that films with this much depth and complexity typically need a longer time frame.

I think the plot of this movie was executed very well and revealed a lot of answers to the questions I previously had about the series. For example, I was curious about the backstory of President Snow, who I previously saw as a villain. Now after learning more about him, I can safely say that I understand his side a little better.

Without spoiling the movie, I found a lot of the plot twists to be completely unexpected and shocking. This movie never failed to keep me at the edge of my seat, but one thing it did fail to do was explain it’s ending more in depth.

So, one of the only things I would change about this movie is the ending, which was a cliffhanger. Although some do enjoy this aspect, I found it a little bit annoying because it took so long to get to the finishing point, only to be let down with an ending I would have to theorize myself.

Other than being confused about some things in the first hour and the cliffhanger at the end, I think this movie had some amazing and unique features that made it one of my favorite releases of 2023 and one of the more underrated ones. Fans will love this movie because it explains so much, but even if you’re not a fan of “The Hunger Games,” you should definitely go see it and since it’s a prequel, you don’t have to have seen any of the earlier ones.