Anime: Gekijouban Naruto: Dai Katsugeki! Yuki Hime Ninpou Chou Datte ba yo!

This is the first Naruto movie and still the best of all that were made. It has an atmosphere much closer to that of its earlier episodes, when the show was still fresh and interesting. As far as movies go, you can of course expect far better production values and flashier battles. Yet it has something more than just an excuse for a parade of special attacks. It is by all means nothing more than a filler mission but it had a smart concept that went beyond the simple plot of “Let’s go save some petty village for money”.

The basic plot is about our heroes escorting an actress while she is being part of a film. Along the way, ghosts and a sinister plot come along to spice up the seemingly dull objective. So in a way it is like the first arc of the tv-series, which begins as simply escorting an old guy back home before the whole thing escalates to a nation-wide conflict. The twist of having movie-making in the story is also a nice catch, since not only this way it is an in-joke to the tv series itself getting its own movie for the first time, but also because the actress is in reality pretending to be “just” an actress. These things are very interesting to find in an otherwise short filler mission and it is definitely eons better than those dreadful tv filler arcs.

You don’t need to have watched any of the series to understand what is going on with the plot; it is quite simple and doesn’t delve too much into anyone important character’s past. At least not in a canon way. Supposed Kakashi knows the leader of the enemy ninjas and he is inferior to him or something but you won’t see that guy again so no worries.

Despite the twist with the movie, the overall story is still the typical Naruto fare: Some person is all emo, tragic childhood, greedy adversaries, people fighting in duels, Naruto end the battle with a Rasengan. It could be far more memorable and interesting if more time was invested into getting to know better the princess and the people of Snow Country but as usual you can’t find all that in the duration of a film. Plus, a lot of time is spent on completely irrelevant events called BATTLES! Seriously, this is an action movie and there is a lot of it but because you don’t care much about the characters you end up not caring about the action. And it’s not that exciting compared to the major battles of the main story so you can’t even like it as guilty pleasure too much.

Yukihime is focused upon and fleshed out on a decent level, which I liked a lot, but all the other Snow characters are left completely one-dimensional and are thus boring. This matters a lot when it comes to the enemy ninjas who are less than caricatures. Even as far as the heroes are concerned, only Naruto was actually necessary to the story, as he was there to “melt the ice” from the actresses’ heart. Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi were just dragged along just because they are in the same team and the movie needed more people to fill in the fights. Ok, maybe Kakashi’s past mission in the same place has a little to do with it but it is mentioned only in passing and means nothing in overall.

And thus you get a film based on two people who are not given enough time to become memorable for their interaction and lots of cameos that are there just to do some flashy but shallow fighting. It would of course be too much to expect more from a filler movie but in theory it would make it far more enjoyable if there was more interaction and less fighting. Although this is supposed to be aimed at kids who probably only expect to see emo kids fighting so I am not so sure if that would work either with that sort of target audience.

Anyhow, I liked the movie to the most part and disliked how the secondary cast was “just there”. I also loath the ending which had some sort of magic gismo melting the ice, like this is a fairy tale or something. Not bad in overall but far from great and lacks replay value.

SIMILAR TO: Naruto (tv series)

As far as fitting in with the storyline of the series, this movie doesn't. It runs parallel between about episodes 100-102 of the series due to the level of development the characters in the movie have reached.

Visuals: 8
Let's begin with the visuals. The Design and Style are pretty much flawless - nice lightning, excellent imagery, carried over from the series - but the Detail, Artwork, and Animation are not quite up to par for a movie. The Detail and Artwork share their flaws - the details and artwork in the background are decent but don't fare as well when applied to foreground objects, most noticably characters. The animation lacks in frames for the slower moving scenes and is unfortunately hard to miss. However, the difficult thing to catagorise is the consistency of these flaws - they improve and falter throughout the movie, meaning it's impossible to simply say they are "bad", since they are aren't that bad all the time - in fact, for the action scenes (for example) the animation is wonderful, and detail + artwork is also stepped up.

Sound: 9
The sound only has one minor flaw - the closing theme. I didn't particularly like it. Everything else, shares the same positive qualities with the series - the voice acting is good, the musical scores are superb, and the background/foreground sounds are atmospheric.

Story: 7
The story is a basic Naruto plot, concerning the wellfare of someone, in this case a 'Snow Princess' and Naruto's team being assigned to guard her. When her life is inevitably threatened, action ensues. It's cliched, but a tried and tested formula nontheless.

The story is pretty fun to watch but suffers from a few aspects. For starters, the main premise of the story is a little dull and not entirely well executed - the movie doesn't really have a proper beginning and end, and thus the problems of the Snow Princess don't really feel very interesting since there isn't a lot of time spent to make you sympathise with her and her country's problems.

Then there are a few boring bits that could have been smoothed out, for example since there wasn't enough time given to build up the atmosphere of the problematic situation of the movie, whenever there's a flashback describing the past of the Snow Princess, it just feels like it's in the way, and that it's using up precious time that could be spent on action, plot or character developement.

But even with these flaws, the story didn't feel contrived or TOO corny. It flowed rather well for what it was, and even being cliched, was suprisingly interesting to watch too. Truthfully, this is partially due to the fact that it's the first "Naruto Movie", and so a foundation of excitment was already present before I watched it. If this was a standalone movie with no series behind it, it simply would not hold in terms of plot.

Characters: 7
Many of the much loved characters from the Naruto series are very much ABSCENT from this movie. In fact, only Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi are present, with the rest of the cast being made up of new faces that are relevent to the particular plot of the movie. This is not as terrible as I started off thinking, however.

As far as the character development goes, I actually liked it quite a bit - especially between Naruto and the Princess, which was almost lost due to the seemingly lack of gratitude shown from the Princess, but saved at the last moment after the end credits of the movie where there is a little scene that finishes it nicely. This particular development kept me from missing most of the other abscent cast.

In the end, I only had 2 minor beefs with the characters aspect as portrayed in the movie - from the main 4, only Naruto is given a decent amount screen time. The others don't feel very present most of the time, even though they have a few action scenes dedicated to them and their abilities. The other irritation is the way the Snow Princess seems so pitiful in the movie. If it was overdone any more than that it would have been really obnoxious. At present she just gets away with it without hindering the movie too much.

Value: 7
Unlike the series, this movie has a much higher replay value due to being consise and simultaneously action packed. If all the slow bits were erradicated it would be even more watchable. Another slight reason for not giving it a higher score is the fact that the movie is a snapshot of Naruto's ability and development at around episode 100 - since the series is very much continuing and becoming more ambitious in its action and skill level (definately by episode 133), the series now appears far superior in content, meaning there is a minor dullness to watching the movie when compared to the series.

However, when the movie was released, I wasn't able to watch it until it came out on dvd. If I HAD seen it when it first came out, the series wouldn't have been so progressed at the time and so I doubt I would have had this complaint.

Enjoyment: 8
I certainly enjoyed this movie overall. It definitely fit the feel of Naruto that has built up over the many episodes of the series, but it didn't feel very ambitious in content. This movie could have easily been 3-4 episodes put back to back to make a mini saga in the series - for a movie I think something more radical and on a larger scale needs to take place in order to satisfy the hype. Simply finishing with a Rasengan as a climax seems a bit dated now. Even if they simply had the appearence of the Giant Toad dude somewhere in the movie, it would have sufficed to make the movie exponentially more pleasureable.

However, it still contained enough of that vital something-something that hit the spot only Naruto seems to be able to do. Watch it, preferably between watching episodes 96-132 of the series. If you have the option, definately hold off watching episode 133 until after you've watched the movie. (For me personally, that particular episode stunningly eclispses the movie's visuals.)

Animation: Pretty predictable here. Way better than the series, especially in the backgrounds, but nothing that'll make you drop your jaw. Good consistency though, I only noticed one "economic spot" (some clones dispelling).
7 - Good but nothing extraordinary.

Sound: The voices, including the new ones, are good, as to be expected and nothing made me notice it, both for good and for bad. The music is what makes me feel like seven is to much. Some of it is taken from the series and some is created: the new stuff isn't that good and the ending theme is way too generic (some girl singing to techno-pop).
7 - Perhaps a little below my expectations.

Story: Here's my beef with this movie. The actions of the "good guys" make me hate them. They basically ignore the princesses own wishes and literally force her into doing something she doesn't want to do. It makes me want to see Naruto getting smacked for being so noxiously self-righteous. This wouldn't be a problem, if I wasn't supposed to be cheering for him and definitely not hating him.
At the end of the day the only character I can relate to is the princess and that's only halfway through the movie.
The plot is a little above see-through, has some awkward flashbacks, some things that needed more explaining (Kakashi's role for one) and in general seems forced and unnatural.
3 - It is consistent but just not any good.

Character: the only two real characters in the movie are Naruto and the snow princess and they are done well. The other characters are the reasons for my mourning. The new ones essentially aren’t there. If they'd just been blank faced robots with no lines, it would have been better because then they'd have a reason for being so damn nothing. That and the dent in sasuke's character (that one line - you'll find it, he has like two or three) is what's keeping this score down. The princess’s character is what's keeping it afloat.
5 - Why are they fighting again? Why did Dotou take over the country? I'd just like to know.

Value: Put simply, I wouldn't want to own this. If I got it as a gift, it'd be back at the store the next day. The action is there and it has it's moments but it isn't nearly enough. The visuals are nothing you'd talk to your friends about.
3 - I will remember it for my anger at the protagonist’s actions and even that memory will be brief.

Enjoyment: To be honest, I was stuck at being mad through most of the movie. There was a neat fighting scene and a good half character but they were tucked into an hour of mediocre and at times even bad.
2 - I was close to just stopping at several times, I even considered just skipping ahead to see some more action (only because I didn't know I had already seen the best it had to offer).

Since most movies based on anime series are just big fillers, I didn't expect much from this movie. You know from the very beginning how the final fight is going to be and how will it end. But there are some details that I really liked.

First, animation is awesome, specially in action scenes. But even in "quiet" scenes, try to look at the backgrounds and you will notice the level of detail and "liveliness" that this movie delivers. There are lots of movies out there with worst animation (and some which are better though, but I expected less ;)

The music is mostly the same as the series.
Main characters are the same as in the series, of course. And the story isn't very original and therefore predictable: it follows the same scheme as the first season (Zabuza & Haku) and Idate's story (or filler). In fact, it's more similar to the second, and I like neither. But don't lose hope on the movie yet, keep reading!

Well, the biggest problem of this movie is time. Since it's so short, the developers had to choose between giving more time to story telling or action. And they took the first option. Thus, the new characters (specially the actress) aren't shallow. That and the great animation make this movie much more enjoyable than Idate's.
But they made fights too short. I think that what any Naruto fan is expecting to watch in these movie are fights! They're cool and very well animated, but only last for a split of second. If they just added 5min for every fight (making it 15min longer) and some trickiness (which is Naruto's trademark) it'd have been much better.

The script writers have some original points: ANBU Kakashi, they created a whole new country that doesn't look too off the naruto world, new techniques that aren't that stupid, the city... it's just that they didn't had enough time to exploit it. And if you are a big Sasuke fan, this movie will surely disappoint you since he barely gets screen time. In fact, the only main character that gets to appear more than the actress is Naruto. Again, time is the enemy here.

Anyway you should give it a try, just to watch the characters' cool moves in REALLY good animation.
Again, I liked the movie because it meet my expectations but could still disappoint you.

To be honest I did'nt have any expectations to this movie, but of course I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

To start of with the animation, it is way better than your standard Naruto episode. But still it's really nothing special. You have some scenes that look really amazing, but then you got some scenes that look like crap.

If you have seen the Naruto series on TV you will emidiatly recognize some tunes from the series, but there is also a complete new soundtrack unique to this movie. The new soundtrack is just "so so", but it's nothing that will annoy you while watching the movie. The voices are also quite well.

The plot...ehhh? What plot? This is really the first Naruto movie's real weak spot. Try to mix a couple of table spoons of cliché and a couple of pounds of predictabilty and you'll have yourself the Naruto Movie plot. The whole thing is so easily predictet that you'll find yourself having figured out the ending and a lot of major events pretty early in the movie.

The characters represent another problem for the Naruto movie. As this beeing equal to a filler episode you know before it has even started that they really can't have any character development with the four main characters. As for Fuun, shes not a bad character, but she never gets interesting.
The bad guys(Some snowboard, paragliding extremesport fanatics) are really the worst characters in this movie. First of all they look really ridiculous with their chakra armour, but even if you are to overlook this shallow statement they are just plain boring. Their techniques is nothing ever seen in the Naruto universe before, in a bad way that is.

I found my self looking at my watch 3 times during this movie, it should tell some about how much i enjoyed it. But don't get me wrong, some scenes are really enjoyable, but it's a shame they are so rare.

I really hope they will do it better next time, because this is not a movie I will watch again, ever.