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-
