This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Katniss Everdeen owns the weekend.
"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1" is the only new movie opening this weekend, as Hollywood studios thought any movie they could put up against it would get shot down faster than anything at which Katniss aims her arrows.
"Mockingjay, Part 1" is an engaging and action-packed movie, but suffers from the inevitable problem that it's an incomplete story. (That will wait for "Part 2," due this time next year.)
We see Katniss, played with fire and sensitivity by Jennifer Lawrence, wrestling with the decision to become the Mockingjay, the symbolic heroine of the rebellion against The Capitol and President Snow (Donald Sutherland). This prompts some sly humor in the first hour, as Katniss bucks against her handlers — including returning cast members Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The action gets stronger in the second hour, leading to the cliffhanger ending.
The only other new movie this week, at the Tower Theatre, is "The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier)," an unrelentingly bleak World War II drama from Hungary. It follows twin brothers (László and András Gyémánt) separated from their parents and sent to live with an abusive grandmother (Piroska Molnár) in a far-off farming village. The twins witness the cruelty around them, and harden themselves to it. The grim story is affecting, but there's no let-up in the long parade of misery.