Naruto Shippuden Movie 2: Bonds - Reviews

I said in the past how I’ve always seen movies from big shōnen franchises as filler arcs with a budget. The Naruto movies are no exception, but I always found them entertaining and effective in what they do, when you just want to sit back, relax, and unplug your brain. There are times, however, when even with that mindset the formula gets so stale that even the writers themselves seem to have stopped giving a crap, resulting in something that could have been subtitled The Contractually Obligatory Movie. And this second Shippūden movie and fifth Naruto movie overall, the one I had the highest hopes for, is one of them.

STORY: 2/10
Man, I don’t know where to even begin here. Well, let’s begin with the tile, Bonds: the theme of “bonds” is barely touched upon, it’s given nothing more than a passing reference here and there and in Naruto’s usual cheesy “the power of love” speech; there’s no exploration of Naruto’s bond with Jiraiya (who’s not even present!), there’s no exploration of Naruto’s bond with Sasuke or anyone else, there’s no real test for Amaru’s bond with Shinnō (it’s just shattered), and there’s no James Bond either; even Sasuke’s presence, one of the movie’s big advertising points, is basically limited to a deus ex machina in the final battle, he is not played on to work on the “bonds” or to craft any emotional moment, he’s just there as a poster boy. God, Sasuke, what did they do to you?, you were such a believable and interesting character before the time skip…

The plot itself is also kind of weak even in comparison to the other movies: the attack on Konoha has been done too many times by now and the scene is not even well done enough to get much of an emotional response (you’re too busy going “What the fu… flying ninjas with machine guns and bomber planes? O_o”), the Land of Sky is just a plot device to get Amaru and Shinnō moving as it all but disappears from the plot after the first sequence and after an incredibly anti-climatic counterattack, the main storyline is the power-hungry villain du jour trying to obtain the ancient super-weapon du jour to, you guessed it, take over the world, and they even managed to ass-pull a freakin’ Zero-tails that feeds on dark chakra I’m not kidding. I felt my IQ drop 10 points there. The writing feels really rushed, you can’t tell if they tried something new but failed hard or just didn’t care, most twists are either underdeveloped (how the hell did a Miyazaki-esque super-weapon thingy fit in there?) or plain cheesy (especially the finale). “But”, you might say, “at least I get to see some awesome ninja action!”. Well, no. True, the final battle with Naruto and Sasuke is awesome here and there, but the action scenes, too, are a huge letdown; first of all, there’s so few of them: the opening sequence, Konoha’s counterattack, and the final battle. Secondly, they’re poorly executed: Naruto just keeps pulling new one-use Rasengan techniques out of God knows where, the counterattack is interrupted so many times that the tension it builds up is constantly nullified, the final battle has some moments but its first part is really repetitive and unintentionally funny. I’ll admit that Naruto’s actions and his separation from Sasuke in the finale aren’t bad at all, and so is some of the comedy, but it’s not enough to make this movie entertaining as a Naruto movie should be.

CHARACTERS: 1/10
There’s not much to say about the regular cast:  Shikamaru is a genius, Kakashi is badass, Hinata is adorable and useless, Sakura is on board for some slapstick and some healing and NOTHING ELSE, and with the little screentime they have and how quickly they’re discarded from the plot let’s just pretend they’re not there at all. Today’s case for Dr. Naruto’s Psychotherapy Division-ttebayo is Amaru; now, if Shion from the previous movie showed how even the typical filler character could still be effective if well executed, Amaru shows how the typical filler character can be useless if executed lazily. It’s the usual stuff, a past of loneliness, annoying and arrogant but fragile inside, looks up to a mentor, is let down at some point, and goes through the usual development with Naruto going “I’ll carry your burden” and “You’re like me!” (I think he has a collection of pre-written “I know what it feels like to be alone” speeches he rehearses in front of the mirror, by now), kicking some ass and saving the world. Been there, done that. Note that, due to a certain plot twist, Amaru has a lot of potential for exploring the theme of master-apprentice bonding in an interesting scenario, but it simply goes to waste. And about the villain… well, I won’t spoil the twist, but let me just say that… it’s really far-fetched, to say the least. Not to mention the total absence of any motivation or backstory, the kind of cardboard cut-out villain that even most filler arcs managed to avoid. And I swear at one point he just turns Super Saiyan…

ANIMATION: 8/10
As with any Naruto movie, the art and animation is consistently good, and with some impressive expressions and details on Amaru. I’ll also give it points for the pretty inspiring design of the Sky Ninjas’ battleships and of the big MacGuffin the villain is after (if it just wasn’t in that cheap CGI it’d be even better…). I have some complaints about the direction, especially the fact that they kept interrupting a fight sequence with scenes of people talking, but it handled well Naruto and Sasuke’s big fight and final moment, as well as Amaru’s crisis.

SOUNDTRACK: 8/10
The soundtrack is handled by the same Takahashi Yasunaru who produces the soundtrack for “Naruto: Shippūden”; it’s pretty varied, with some tracks in the same “Japanese-music-meets-rock” which characterised Masuda’s work in the first series, and works well throughout these 90 minutes. If you pay attention to it, it easily stands out. Although I have to say that I found the ending song (performed by the same HOME MADE Kazoku who performed one Shippūden ED) really out of place and generic, but it may just be my aversion to rap here. I should give them credit for at least not using the Obligatory Sappy Ballad™…

CAST: 5.5/10
Takeuchi Junko as Naruto keeps doing her thing, I think we should just stop taking her into consideration when it comes to reviews and consider the default setting to be Takeuchi=Awesome. The rest of the regular cast do their usual job, but they have so little space that they could be discarded. So, it all comes down to the two original characters: both Kumai Motoko as Amaru and Ishizuka Unshō (who already went down in Naruto history as Zabuza) as Shinnō are trying their best, but neither of them manages to make their characters believable and interesting. Ishizuka carries his character well most times, but at others he’s just plain cheesy; and despite Kumai’s good job in the most emotional moments the character’s dialogue is simply too plain, seen-before and cheesy for even her to make it work.

OVERALL: 3.9/10
So, in the end, I know I always say it’s pointless to watch a shōnen franchise movie expecting to see a masterpiece, and that one should just do so when in the mood for some mindlessly action-packed entertainment, but even with that mindset this movie came out as a big disappointment to me. The plot is ridiculous, the action is really lazy, and, most importantly, it’s boring. I hate to use this argument, because it's highly subjective, but, really... to put it bluntly, it wasn’t the right moment of Shippūden canon to make a movie, because there were no elements to bring something new to a formula well past its expiration date that even from the fridge is starting to smell funny. If you’re a huge Naruto fan who wants to see everything in the franchise, feel free to go ahead, but otherwise there’s no reason to watch it: the previous movies are much better, and even some filler arcs from the series are more entertaining than this.

This review has SLIGHT SPOILERS!!! I say ‘slight’ because I’m kind of vague as to the details of what happens, but I still talk about spoilery stuff.

This movie was very random and poorly written. I just barely finished the Sora arc, and much of this movie felt like a repeat of that—Konoha being attacked and Naruto fighting against the fox. Except for, this movie handled those a lot worse than the show did. I felt very disconnected from the attack in the beginning, while I was very emotionally invested in the attack from the Sora arc. Plus, the sky ninja were just awful shots. I don’t recall seeing them hit anybody, even though they were throwing more weapons than the defending shinobi.

Then, the further the movie progressed, the less important that attack seemed. It basically was a plot device to get the characters all moving to where the climax of the show was going to take place. Not that there weren’t some uses for it, and the sky ninja were needed for the backstory of what was going on, but it just didn’t connect back as well as it should have.

And then Sasuke was thrown into the mix. And this is where I wonder how canon the movie is, because Naruto movies usually aren’t canon (I see them as inhabiting the same space as fillers, and sometimes even less so, with movies like this inventing new kinds of ninjas). But this movie presents a little backstory to Orochimaru and him knowing the techniques that he does, and Sasuke’s mission seems really random if it doesn’t tie back to the show in some way.

Speaking of Sasuke, I felt like he was a little out of character in this movie. I think they tried to fix that some by not giving him a lot of dialogue, so that he could remain cold and distant, but then they showed a softer side of him at the end… Which I liked, because I don’t like Sasuke when he’s a cold jerk (and that bit with Amaru was just sweet), but it just doesn’t fit the person he’s become.

Then we come to Hinata. I was so excited to see she was going to be a part of Naruto’s team! …only for her to disappear and get hardly any screen time. And I think that’s the first time there’s ever been two girls on a squad. I felt like the writers just threw Hinata there because squads are three people, but they didn’t really want a third person there, and she’s the quietest out of Naruto’s age group.

Also, I know this is a problem with the Naruto show in general, but it was particularly bad in this movie… Why does the villain just sit there and talk? It’s like he wants to give Naruto time to recover and kill him. I don’ know how many times Naruto could have been killed if the villain hadn’t been babbling on and sitting there enjoying being evil.

Last complaint. I felt like the animation wasn’t up to par with the show. The 3D bits did NOT blend well with the 2D, and some shots of the 2D were just ugly.

Not that this movie was completely awful, as Hinata did at least get a little bit of screentime, and I liked the character of Amaru. And, like I said earlier, it was nice to see the softer side of Sasuke again.

I don’t regret watching this movie, but I don’t think I’ll be watching it again.

Story:

So having absolutely nothing to do with the main Naruto plot, like every other Naruto movie there is, this one follows the story of our main ramen loving hero, Naruto, and his band of merry men consisting of Hinata, Sakura and two new faces in the form of a young girl and an old man.

The movie begins with the Sky country waging war on Konoha and destroys the village. We are then introduced to Amaru, useless character #1, and old man pedo( pedo? Yep pedo!).

After a series of unfortuate events Amaru releases some dark chakra inside of her, which of course, allows Naruto to give his 'I know what it feels like speech' and ultimately they defeat the baddy and yay...happy ending.

Does this sound as largely uninteresting as Ive tried to make it? Well it is! This movie allowed me to find entertainment in staring at the wall and naming the various bits of rubber littered across my desk. The storyline isn't captivating and much of the movie is simply Amaru crying and Naruto telling her to 'let him take his burden'. Sound vaguely familiar to I don't know, every other Naruto movie and the main Naruto storyline.

Animation/ Sound:

The animation is good I guess, it's the usual Naruto style characters and you can't really fault the movie on this aspect. The only thing I didn't like about the visuals was Old man pedo's face, which looked distorted thrugh parts of the movie.

I loved the theme song No Rain No Rainbow- Home Made Kazoku (download!!) and yes I downloaded it straight after hearing it. The rest of the cast have their usual voices, which similar to the character styles is fine. Nothing wrong with these two aspects.

Characters:

Aside from the usual arrogant Naruto, abrasive Sakura and borderlining psycopathically quiet Hinata the two new characters aren't really that 'new' and simply bring forth overdone Naruto movies girl and baddy combo.

Amaru is the new chick on the block and basically she is like every other female Naruto movie character. At first hates Naruto, then needs to rely on him then ends up loving him by the end of the movie. She is pretty much a useless soul who does nothing but cry, whinge and make everyone around her want to punch her straight in the face and tell her to STFU. Oh she also has some sort of 'dark chakra' inside her but i'll leave the gigantic worm in the movie to tell you more about that.

Old man pedo is as I said, a freakin pedo. he's new #1 creep on the block, forcing some below 16 child to love him. Hello, I smell lawsuit heading your way old man pedo.  But he won't be needing one, cause as the cliche 'take over the world' baddy he get's brought down to size by Naruto.

 

Overall:

Well aside from the storyline being more repetitive than an episode of the Tellytubbies, and the retarded introduced characters who provide nothing new or interesting, the movie is OK.

Whats that random gigantic worm, I should give it a 5/10? Well Ok