The film begins with Sasuke Uchiha taking of his robe and wetting his hair in a waterfall, it does sound slightly tantalising but it caught my attention, so I can hardly complain. After making a lot of fangirls swoon, the film sets up a simple plot of enemies attacking Konoha. Yes, very generic, however if you give the film time to develop, the story actually has content, not very complex content but content nonetheless! The Sky country is not the only threat, we have Orochimaru and that weird spirit thing; which is more than I expected from the usual one-dimensional Naruto plot. Saying this, I was still disappointed during the end of film because it finished so abruptly, I was unsatisfied with how rushed it all felt.
The art was of a very good quality, a repeating pattern with the new Naruto movies. The background imagery was breathtaking at times and really excelled over the shoddy art of the anime series. It really shows that they are capable of producing good stuff, if only they could bothered to do so on a long term basis e.g the Shippuden series.
Normally, I find it quite difficult to care for newly introduced characters, but I must say that Amaru and her sensei intrigued me, though I didn't have that emotional attachment due to their lack in depth. The whole reason, I gave the characters a score of 9 was because I felt the pre-existing characters saved the movie and gave it it's charm. Little things like; Sai's exciting fight scene, Kakashi's presence, Hinata blushing violently and Naruto getting nervous around girls, all added up to a really enjoyable film.
Even Sasuke was there, which I thought was great since he pertains a lot of mystery, especially if you watch this in correlation to the anime series. This is like gold dust if you are a SasuNaru fangirl because the determination (on Naruto's part) and friendship between them is still very evident. Their bond is undeniably strong and their fighting style's compliment eachother perfectly. The movie is a reminder of something I'd once forgotten, that they were once best friends which is why I personally hold this film as special.
STORY- 6
ART- 8
SOUND- 6
CHARACTER- 9
ENJOYMENT- 9
OVERALL- 38/50 - 76% - (VeryGood-8)
