Gekijô ban Naruto: Shippûden - Kizuna (2008) Reviews

• Like a filler episode with a bigger budget and preachy moral

  eddax2010-02-16

  I looked forward to the first two Naruto movies when the series was still fresh to me but now, the movies seem like a string of fillers with a bigger budget, with largely unremarkable stories and always a preachy moral. Typically, the only scenes I enjoy in the movies are when more of Konoha's cast of shinobis are used in battle. Honestly, the show might be named "Naruto" but enough of him already. Enough of the unrequited bromance between him and Sasuke too. And I would like to see the women be more useful. On the rare occasion they get to kick butt, they're not even good at it. Hmm, this has turned into a QQ post about the Naruto series. I don't have much else to say about the movie though. The Leaf Village gets attacked and we do get to see some of its defenders do their thing, but those scenes are woefully sparse and short. Mostly, it's more of Naruto's emo-ness and life lessons. Zzz. They really need to learn from Pixar and adult up their stories a bit.

• Theme is Bonds

  kadiotatsuryu2014-04-28

  Naruto Shippūden The Movie: Bonds was a very hyped up movie because of the rogue ninja himself, Sasuke. To be honest, it was an enjoyable film, but not one I can necessarily rave that much about, so this won't be long. All chaos breaks loose at Naruto's home village, Konoha at the hands of the Sky Ninja. The movie is basically about a mini war between Leaf and Sky. Also, Naruto, Sakura and Hinata are sent on a mission to a village and meat a girl and her sensei. So that's the main plot. The title of the film generally matches the central theme of the film, hence why Sasuke himself makes an appearance, despite having "severed" his bonds" with Naruto, Sakura and Konoha. Just in case, hat's not a spoiler by the way, Sasuke is in the film. He plays the typical role of an anti-hero; not on the good side but having a common purpose with it, on Orochimaru's orders. At the same time, this girl Amaru works on her bond with her sensei, who encourages her dream to become a good doctor, despite her gender. She admires him a lot, as is further shown after countless battles and trials, though she has a tomboyish punk personality and lashes out at Naruto a lot. But as with I think pretty much all Naruto movies, Naruto makes it his personal mission to try and change someone's attitude. Plus, some weird biology seems to keep going on with Amaru and they've gotta find a way to stop or suppress some strange demon called the Reibi, or Zero-Tails. Another issue to add is how Konoha can deal with the airborne attacks of the Sky Ninja. Animations are decent in this movie, similar to those used in the previous Shippūden film. Action is okay of the most part. This movie also has one of the longest end battles among Naruto movies, possibly depending on weather you count the end as one big fight or two. Mine is not the latter. You get to see some awesome fighting, mostly taijutsu and what Naruto can do against such a dangerous opponent with his own power and will. He emphasizes on the significance of love and bonds. He's pretty rouged up at the end just in appearance as he keeps fighting. I suppose Amaru is in a way an encouragement to young girls who want to be doctors. Jiraiya is a huge influence on all of Naruto's actions in this movie. And we get to see a nostalgic duo that most Naruto fans have been dying to see fight side by side. So overall, action was okay I guess but got really awesome at the end, animations were decent, plot was well done but not phenomenal. If you exclude the central themes that is, every Naruto movie has a theme...still unsure about Blood Prison's theme, but I'll figure it out and you'll see when I review it!. Here, it is bonds, which is also a fairly big theme in the canon plot of Naruto. I wish I could give my score in decimals, not sure how to yet, but whatever. I give this film a review of 9/10...more or less!

• A Rather Uninspired Effort with Very Little New to Offer

  carologletree2018-09-30

  I was pretty disappointed in this one, to be honest. The "Naruto" movies are getting pretty formulaic at this point, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as it's executed well and brings SOME new stuff to the table. This film didn't really do that. Most of it is stuff we have seen before, and a lot of the newer things about it weren't executed all that well. There isn't much to complain about on a technical level. The animation is consistently good for most of the film, and there are some pretty well done battle scenes, particularly the explosive opening with the sky ninjas attacking The Leaf Village. They have even gotten better with their use of CGI. It was a bit eyesorish in a few places, but for the most part, the CGI is much better integrated than it was in the last film. The music was also pretty solid. In terms of story and character, though, this one left a lot to be desired. I was actually kind of invested in this movie for about the first half of it and it seemed like it was going somewhere interesting, but a lot of it played out in a pedestrian fashion and generally felt like stuff we have already seen before in the previous films. The big twist with Shinno being a bad guy and that he was deceiving Amaru the whole time wasn't terribly executed, but I just couldn't shake away the feeling that it was all too similar to what we had seen with Master Haido and Temujin in "Legend of the Stone of Gelel." Shinno wasn't even that great of a villain, either. His motivations were pretty muddled and the superpowers that he introduced were too strange to be all that interesting. There are other things about this film that feel off. The attack on The Leaf Village at the beginning felt less and less important as the movie progressed and ended up feeling like a plot device, the sky ninjas' battleships were destroyed when Shino took care of them after appearing out of absolutely nowhere, and Sakura and Hinata end up being completely useless in the plot. Even Sasuke's involvement, the movie's big selling point, didn't have much to offer. He had almost no involvement in the story at all apart from showing up in the final 20 minutes to help Naruto fight Shinno. I love Sasuke as much as the next guy, but they honestly could have left him out of this movie entirely and they wouldn't have had to change much. He felt shoehorned in here just for the purpose of fanservice. This film is filled with so much wasted potential and mostly felt like it was just going through the motions. It isn't terrible by any means, but it isn't really one I'd want to watch again. This one is recommended mainly to die-hard "Naruto" fans who don't want to miss a single adventure. RATING: C