Gekijô-ban Naruto shippûden

I've been a fan of the Naruto Anime Series since it's glory days. When I got hooked, it was around episode 50 out of the near 300 episodes out today. I've seen them all and I have got to say, the production and writing team are doing their best to destroy this franchise. Horrible filler episodes, lackluster animations, clichéd story lines, and hackney character developments. This entire movie felt like one long and boring filler arc of the Naruto television series. When the action kicked up, it was alright. The animations and choreography were all standard for where the series is right now, but it was nowhere near the quality a feature film should have. The story is just modified from every Naruto movie we've seen before. Just do yourself a favor and re-watch Rock Lee fighting Gaara or Kimimaru, and you'll get more excitement out of it than from this movie.

The first three Naruto movies were entertaining and exciting. And they showed the essence of what Naruto's character is about. This fourth installment is not that much different but is nearly not as compelling as the previous movies were. In Shippûden Naruto has grown considerably. And you do notice that he has matured. In this movie it is like he never changed except for his appearance. To me it is strange why the writers don't show some elements that are relevant to the show or it's characters. After the developments in Naruto Shippûden I had hoped that we at least got to see what happened in the two years that Naruto was training with Jiraiya or something like that. But to have the same story told over and over does get boring. (Priestess is cocky,Naruto gets angry and corrects her and finally ... her. You know. The end!). This movie does contain some superb action scenes especially the one with Rock Lee. Not a a bad movie,but very pale in comparison to the previous movies and the series.

This time, the narrative centers on a gang of renegade ninjas who choose to bring back to life a demonic spirit that, if it were to reconnect with its body, would destroy the entire planet. Team 7 (Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Neji) is tasked with protecting Shion, the shrine maiden, as there is only one way to stop this from happening: for her to go and reseal the demon. This Naruto movie follows the same pattern as all the others, with them needing to defend a significant person, getting to know them, and engaging in fierce combat along the way. However, the underlying premise concerning Shion's ability to foresee people's deaths adds a little spice to the otherwise mediocre story.

The characters this time are Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Neji, as I previously mentioned. You know what to anticipate from them if you've been watching Naruto Shippuuden, but as usual, Naruto is the main character and remains irritatingly foolish until a later point. Shion turns out to be a rather deep character herself, so it can be forgiven that it does the whole Naruto attaching himself to the main character thing like it always does. This time, the antagonists are quite creative-drug users-but their acts aren't really justified.

Since this is a motion picture, excellent production values are to be expected, and they are. Fluidly animated action sequences, amazing lighting effects and interactive settings. But it's evident that some details, like the CG army and fire effects, were trimmed. The soundtrack will make you feel as though you've heard it before, even though the music is really great and fits the emotions nicely. The humorous ED theme, however, is something that no one has heard before.

The first "Naruto Shippuden" movie and the fourth "Naruto" movie overall, this one could have been a lot better. It is mostly a decent movie, but many things held it back from being anything spectacular.

The storyline has some cool mythology in it and the priestess is an interesting character with an engaging backstory. A problem, though, is that some things weren't explored nearly enough. The main villain is woefully underdeveloped as they barely showed him at all apart from the beginning and the climax, and we didn't even get to see any flashbacks pertaining to the priestess' backstory until near the end.

The interactions between Naruto and the priestess kept me interested most of the time, even if it undeniably felt rehashed from the previous films. I really like Naruto's teammates in this film, which were Sakura, Neji, and Rock Lee. Neji was his usual awesome self, and I liked that Rock Lee got to have more involvement in here than in "Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom."

The majority of the animation in this film is pretty solid, but there is sadly some really bad CGI used for the stone army. Not only was it hard to get invested when they fought the stone army due to the subpar CGI, but the way the army was defeated felt anticlimactic. However, the fight scenes against the henchmen are some of the highlights of this film as they are exciting, intense, and do a good job of giving everyone the spotlight.

I suppose the themes of this movie are pretty good. It talks about how nothing is inevitable and that people make their own fates. I do think it's kind of strange, though, how the movie ended at the moment that it did. Be sure to watch the post-credits scene, or else the movie will feel incomplete.

I did have a mostly positive feeling after watching this movie, but it definitely isn't a great film by any means and it's not as good as the original "Naruto" trilogy. Despite it's many shortcomings, I still liked it well enough and I'd say it's worth checking out for "Naruto" fans.

RATING: B-

I was excited for this like hell. I like Naruto and totally watched 3 times Shippuden including. The thing in anime is it is More popular and overrated in overseas. But this movie can't provide whatever we expected as from Naruto Anime. I started watching this movie and just after some minutes it doesn't provide a good Story, DEPTH IN CHARACTERS, ACTION, and plots. It is full of plotholes and the fact is most of them are still not revealed even though the Naruto and Shippuden are all over a years ago. Naruto was my first choice before I watched anything better. Now, it comes around after 8-9 Anime in my favourite Anime list.