Not having been particularly obsessed with the Hunger Games franchise in the past, I was very surprised at how excited the promotion actually got me for the movie... which sometimes is to the detriment of a production when people go in with too high expectations. This also should just not have been that great of a movie, considering it’s a prequel to a 4-part (movie) franchise from a decade ago; and most of these resurrections just don’t tend to hit the spot. They’re simply cash cows. Excuse the pun, but the odds were not in its favor.

And despite all of that, my ass was sitting in that theater watching them [spoiler]land in that zoo cage together and watching the contrast between Lucy’s quickly growing trust in Snow and the other tributes with their mentors,[/spoiler] and they had me gagged just like that.

I genuinely think Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler’s friendship played an essential part in this movie. That is not to say they aren’t also simply super talented; there are just so many movies with household name actors that just don’t make you feel anything because the actors have zero chemistry. And these two just clearly worked really well together.

I look forward to seeing a lot more from Tom Blyth.