Piapia

Singapore decided to show us anime fans some mercy by screening Road to Ninja, Houou no Miko and Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning in the cinemas. Road to Ninja is a little different from the previous movies. While movies 1 to 5 introduce new characters—protagonists and antagonists—with plots that totally differ from the original story's, RtN is almost like a possible subplot of the main story. With the exception of some, we get the same characters we see in the main story, but with a strange twist that would greatly appeal to the audience. It’s like a dream come true to some fans. It also keeps yourmind going while you watch it, which personally, is what makes Naruto fun to watch. There’s also a hidden message in it, that is actually quite obvious in the starting of the movie. There's a big chunk of flashback in one of the parts though, but it was from my favourite episode, so I'm not complaining. Same art, new soundtracks, and overall it’s unique, funny and (kind of) tear-shedding, what I find—unbiasedly—worth skipping work for and the S$16.90 (large bottle of Coke with a free refill included) I spent on. I actually managed to get my non-Naruto-loving sister to watch it. And hey, more MinaKushi loving here!

Vinum_Sabbathi

Have you ever seen a Naruto movie before? Yes? Good. Do you have the intention of watching this movie thinking it'll be something new? Yes? Alright, I want you to open a new tab and search up in Google, a montage of the "Best scenes" from this movie. Said montage will inevitably contain the much-talked about bath scene involving all the AU characters, a few scenes involving Naruto and his parents (perhaps Sakura if the person is a fan of that pairing), and his fight with the movie's big baddy (whom I won't spoil just in case, although if you don't know by now I doubtyou actually cared about this movie much). Do it, truly, come on. I'll be waiting. Done? Congratulations, you do not need to see this movie anymore. No, I am not kidding. You've seen all this movie has to offer; You do not need to bother with it anymore. I am being as frank as I can be: This is what people for buying into it. No matter what they promise, it's always the same -- Their promise and promotion were bullshit, and ultimately it's another rasengan/shadow clone wank fest. It happened with the second movie when they promised us that Sasuke would be an integral part of it (He was barely there in the end), when they promised us that Minato would play a big role in the fourth movie (He was pointless to the story), it happened with the fifth movie (Or so I'm told, I was not following this one so I am not completely certain what was the case here), and now it happened with this, and will probably happen to the 2014 movie too. Literally, the movie has no story; It's a holding pattern -- Naruto gets sad then something happens (he goes into the AU with Sakura), they faff about for like an hour, then the movie's bad guy pops in out of nowhere and with no explanation, ending with Naruto using a bunch of Rasengan and Shadow Clone and doing the whole "believe in myself" thing (Although, to it's credit, this one didn't end up with Naruto rasenganing the bad guy's ass, but rather with a fist fight, so there's that), even though said bad guy had previously nuked ENTIRE VILLAGES to ashes with a cough and the only reason he didn't vanish him out of existence with another nuke is because the movie didn't wanted him to. And, the biggest offender is that this wouldn't even be so bad if the movie wasn't so fucking AFRAID to go out of its comfort zone despite this being virtually an entire new canvas for work -- The much anticipated (and HEAVILY advertised) personality switches mean absolutely NOTHING to the story or plot and the explanations for them are entirely nonexistent, something that also wouldn't all too bad (it certainly wouldn't be good, but yeah), if it wasn't for the fact that they're literally only there for (Legitimately) FIVE MINUTES (ten, max); Naruto and Sakura get in the AU and immediately find Team 8 (Hinata, who now is mean and bitchy and one of the few characters with clothing switches, and Kiba and Shino who look the same and behave the same except instead being good with dogs and bugs, respectively, they're now bad with them), they runaway and find team 10 (Ino, who now is shy and soft spoken, and Chouji and Shikamaru who essentially switched personalities, Chouji now being fit and stoic and Shikamaru being hyper active and dumb, although not fat, funnily enough), then Sasuke (Whom, despite now being a "playboy", is also basically the same outside of that, and this is literally pointed out by Naruto himself, plus a completely clothing switch), then that bath scene (No explanation is given for why they go there) where upon the last team shows up in medias res (Team Guy, compossing of Neji, who now is perverted and lacking in discipline, and Lee and Tenten who are the same except Tenten is now clumsy with weapons and Lee is a, well, I won't spoil just because the reveal of that makes for one of the better scenes in the movie), some faffing goes on before Hinata spots his cousin spying on the girls, causing her to get angry and attempt to beat him up until Lee shows up out of nowhere by falling through the ceiling (Much the same way he did in the manga preview, since the scene is essentially a reinacting of that with the personality switches), he runs away, they chase him ending in an actually pretty humorous scene, and then... They're gone. Literally. They just disappear, completely. They're not mentioned or seen ever again, with two exceptions: Shino, for no reason other than to show off his new found disdain for bugs (Him also being the second character to show no signs of change in the previous scene), and Sasuke who shows up two more times, one to give Sakura a flower (Which was in the trailer) and another where upon he flirts with some more girls causing Sakura to realize she's not a special case to him and making her sad. The rest is entirely going through the motions; Sad scenes with Naruto's parents (some of which are, admittedly, fairly poignant), who are also exactly the same with the exception of one trait that I won't spoil, a bunch of pretty damn useless fights and missions, and then the ultimate bad guy shows up, destroying the village and ending in a long fight with Naruto, before he goes back to his world because he doesn't want to be there anymore. And, I'm saying all of this with a pain, because this movie was one of thing that sparkled back my interest with the Naruto fandom (Where upon I got a lot of friends that I'm quite grateful for, even though I don't quite follow the series anymore those people keep me tangled back to it), and I really did wanted it to be good; I love its concept, I truly loved AU Hinata and the bad guy especially, and for the most part, while the animation is nothing outstanding, it's nice and pretty, a good treat for the eyes, ESPECIALLY on high resolution. But concept can never make up for lacking execution, and what the execution gave us was a reskinning of an already done movie with a more than questionable marketing campaign. Also, contrary to popular belief, the creator of the series, Kishimoto, didn't actually write this whole movie, he just designed the alternative characters and a few touches on the script and plot line, for the most part this was done entirely by the same thing that has brought us the same movies from before and that "Gold mine" of filler which makes the anime such a classic. Admittedly, this does make it a little less sad considering that if it really was written and done by him and this is all he could do then it would tell you just how much wasted potential this series has had to suffer. Still, all in all, what we have here is nothing more than a reskinned retread. There's nothing wrong with retreads, many forms of art have been essentially retreads of old formulas in order to explore new ideas, and, to a small (Literally microscopic) degree, this does explore new ideas. But at the end, we're still watching the same shit we've already seen with some added scenes of silly "what ifs" that amount to little more than "what could've been". I don't believe in scores, but I have to rate this, so I'll just go with 5 because it's in the middle.