This time, the narrative centers on a gang of renegade ninjas who choose to bring back to life a demonic spirit that, if it were to reconnect with its body, would destroy the entire planet. Team 7 (Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Neji) is tasked with protecting Shion, the shrine maiden, as there is only one way to stop this from happening: for her to go and reseal the demon. This Naruto movie follows the same pattern as all the others, with them needing to defend a significant person, getting to know them, and engaging in fierce combat along the way. However, the underlying premise concerning Shion's ability to foresee people's deaths adds a little spice to the otherwise mediocre story.

The characters this time are Naruto, Sakura, Rock Lee, and Neji, as I previously mentioned. You know what to anticipate from them if you've been watching Naruto Shippuuden, but as usual, Naruto is the main character and remains irritatingly foolish until a later point. Shion turns out to be a rather deep character herself, so it can be forgiven that it does the whole Naruto attaching himself to the main character thing like it always does. This time, the antagonists are quite creative-drug users-but their acts aren't really justified.

Since this is a motion picture, excellent production values are to be expected, and they are. Fluidly animated action sequences, amazing lighting effects and interactive settings. But it's evident that some details, like the CG army and fire effects, were trimmed. The soundtrack will make you feel as though you've heard it before, even though the music is really great and fits the emotions nicely. The humorous ED theme, however, is something that no one has heard before.

The start alone left me speechless and I couldn't help but watch with anticipation. The story was fun but this felt more like Inuyasha territory rather then Naruto since demons aren't really the usual enemy as for in Inuyasha it's the norm. The first moment of comic relief had me in tears despite it being rather simple. I'm glad there was a moment for Lee to use drunkin fist but the way he "activates" it by eating a liquor dessert just makes me question why Guy doesn't buy more in case he needs them. Shion, despite starting off annoying, gave the most comic relief and by the end became very lovable.

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-