The Wolverine The To Do List and other new movies reviewed

In this week s new movies Hugh Jackman dons Wolverine s retractable claws again for The Wolverine and the documentary The Act of Killing is a must see. Five out of six films this week received at least three stars.

Ben Rothstein The Wolverine takes Logan (Hugh Jackman) to Japan where he crosses paths with ninjas samurai and assorted gun toting ne er do wells.

1/2 The Wolverine (PG 13) Where The Wolverine delivers isn t in plot but in its core dynamic which places Logan in the familiar if somewhat paternalistic role of savior. That s a welcome change from Origins in which his primary motivation was ugly revenge. Michael O Sullivan

The Act of Killing (Unrated) Whatever you call it The Act of Killing is a must see. Using blunt stagecraft probing psychological insight elegant interrogation of narrative truth and characters steeped in a particularly terrifying brand of self mythologizing director Joshua Oppenheimer has succeeded in turning The Act of Killing into both a sharply confrontational vehicle for bearing witness and a craftily layered meditation on the cinematic medium itself. Ann Hornaday

1/2 Blackfish (PG 13) The core assertions made by filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite are shocking even if there s some dispute as to their accuracy. Number one Captivity doesn t seem good for orcas which are highly intelligent sensitive mammals. They tend to have a higher mortality rate living in parks than they do in the wild the film notes. Michael O Sullivan

1/2 The To Do List (R) Much of the film s comedy emerges from Brandy s perfectionist tendencies and deadpan discussion of lewd acts but the 90s setting also serves as a running joke. That could limit the appeal for those that came of age before or after the decade. Stephanie Merry

1/2 Crystal Fairy (Unrated) Crystal Fairy as she calls herself almost immediately disrupts Jamie s monomaniacal focus on drugs which comes across as an obvious defense mechanism against what appears to be an otherwise paralyzing fear. Michael O Sullivan

The Hunt (R) Because The Hunt is predicated on such a well known hot button issue it sometimes feels dated its masterful storytelling and performances serving a cautionary lesson that one hopes viewers won t need to re learn. Ann Hornaday

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