Story (8/10): Conan and friends are boarding an Aegis Destroyer for a day of fun on the high seas. But, as usual for this group, trouble follows in the form of a severed arm turning up in the ships filters. After that is a race against the clock to keep national secrets at bay, catch a set of spies, and to solve the murder of a lieutenant.
This story is big and relatively complex, but it really works well for the whole movie. While it does drag in certain sections, the mystery is split up into chunks for the audience to keep the flow moving. It may seem almost too wordy (and that's saying something for a Conan movie), but it captures the feeling of a thriller novel and keep syou on your toes as to what could happen next.
Plus, the resolution of everything is rather interesting and definitely fun for everyone watching.
Art (8/10): While it's getting repetitive for me to say that the art is really good, it just seems like every movie finds whole new ways to shine. Here, thanks to the frantic pace of the majority of the film, the characters are always moving around and their models are really well done. Also the few fight scenes are probably the best bits of animation in the whole thing.
If I must complain, the backgrounds here are supremely boring and it feels like the background characters are literally in the background for how much they move and do anything.
Sound (7/10): It's a Detective Conan music. So, as usual, it's pretty good.
Character (8/10): Leaving out the normal Conan cast (since they just tend to act like themselves), we have a somewhat big cast involving the crew on the destroyer and the police characters that end up popping up 2/5ths of the way through the movie. And luckily for us they are fairly important to the plot.
All the SDF characters are reasonable people and act as appropriate as military. While there are just a few too many, they are all fairly nice to watch. In particular, praise must be given to the singular female member of the cast there, since once she's really allowed into the plot, she becomes one of the highlights of the movie.
The villians are a bit mixed, though they do their job fairly well. Granted, there are only two people, but one is correctly villainous, while the other is kind of bland evil. But in the context of the movie it works.
(Also, major props to Ran for having a completely badass moment here. You go girl!)
Enjoyment (8/10): Thankfully, this is a huuuge step up from the last movie in all areas. I was really on the edge of my seat waiting to see where the plot would take us next. I just generally had a lot of fun with this movie and I'll take a thriller-mystery for the awesomeness that it is any day.
Detective Conan: Private Eye in the Distant Sea is a great return to form of the better movies (a la 13 and 14). The plot is solid, the movie cast well done, the action great, and just overall a generally fun movie for any one to just pick up and watch.
8/10 = a fun movie with a great plot and all around fun; maybe a bit too much jumping around, but you get used to it very quickly; DC fans will like this if they liked movies 13 and 14, but even non-fans can have fun with it;
