Reviews

Naruto movie 3 honestly surprised me. While I wasn't expecting anything more than an extended length episode, instead Naruto movie 3 stands on its own as a genuine movie. The story seems to be pretty standard fare, on paper anyway, but is handled well for all that. The story contains the depth and pathos that the show aims to have, elevating it. As always, the content of the story is not quite as important as the execution of the story and this movie succeeds in that respect. Story aside, standing largest of the movie's strengths is actually its art. The new character designs cooked up for the film look good and the art is crisp and nice-looking. Further, the action sequences are fast, brutal, and possessed of an unusual fluidity. There are moments were the art direction takes strongly artistic bends, as well as taking more experimental shifts (particularly in some of the fight scenes) and this all works very well. Occasionally, the art in the comedic moments may seem discongruous to the art in the action sequences but it all works together surprisingly well and looks nice doing it. The music is good, seems lifted directly from the series (whether it really is or not) - though thats not a bad thing, per se. Music aside, there are many moments of well-placed silence to highlight the emotional gravity or drama in various scenes. Rock Lee nearly seems like a non-item particularly next to Naruto, who seems bent on carrying the entire movie. This is especially interesting in light of that while Rock Lee has probably the fewest lines of dialogue of any of the leads, he has some of the most involved and intense action scenes. It whould seem that Lee is tacked onto to this adventure simply for the sake of said action scenes (not that I'm complaining). Naruto is, naturally, possessed still of grating personality and largest importance to the movie, but he is not, overall, especially irritating. Overall though, the characters work well together and won't displease most folks. Overall, Naruto movie 3 stands apart as a good movie, not just a good Naruto yarn, due in large part to its high production values.