Naruto the Movie 3: Guardians of the Crescent Moon Kingdom

Naruto movie 3 honestly surprised me. While I wasn't expecting anything more than an extended length episode, instead Naruto movie 3 stands on its own as a genuine movie. The story seems to be pretty standard fare, on paper anyway, but is handled well for all that. The story contains the depth and pathos that the show aims to have, elevating it. As always, the content of the story is not quite as important as the execution of the story and this movie succeeds in that respect. Story aside, standing largest of the movie's strengths is actually its art. The new character designs cooked upfor the film look good and the art is crisp and nice-looking. Further, the action sequences are fast, brutal, and possessed of an unusual fluidity. There are moments were the art direction takes strongly artistic bends, as well as taking more experimental shifts (particularly in some of the fight scenes) and this all works very well. Occasionally, the art in the comedic moments may seem discongruous to the art in the action sequences but it all works together surprisingly well and looks nice doing it. The music is good, seems lifted directly from the series (whether it really is or not) - though thats not a bad thing, per se. Music aside, there are many moments of well-placed silence to highlight the emotional gravity or drama in various scenes. Rock Lee nearly seems like a non-item particularly next to Naruto, who seems bent on carrying the entire movie. This is especially interesting in light of that while Rock Lee has probably the fewest lines of dialogue of any of the leads, he has some of the most involved and intense action scenes. It whould seem that Lee is tacked onto to this adventure simply for the sake of said action scenes (not that I'm complaining). Naruto is, naturally, possessed still of grating personality and largest importance to the movie, but he is not, overall, especially irritating. Overall though, the characters work well together and won't displease most folks. Overall, Naruto movie 3 stands apart as a good movie, not just a good Naruto yarn, due in large part to its high production values.

The worst Naruto movie in existence. I'm appalled at how something as horrible as this actually exists. So anyhow, the aesthetics are alright...I guess. Nothing else about this anime is even remotely decent. The story, man, I could predict everything that was going to happen right from the start. It's so predictable. Naruto meets a prick, does stuff to make that prick see he's wrong, owns a bad guy with a new Rasengan, we've already seen this pattern in the last two movies anyway. Once you figure out the basic roles of every character, there is nothing else to learn from this movie. Thebackground of this particular story is a joke. I mean seriously, circus animals? The characters likewise are extremely generic, like the story, and nothing special. And honestly, do you really want to go through the agony of watching an annoying little kid being a prick? If you don't like annoying small children in general, please avoid this movie like the plague. I like the Naruto universe a lot. I'm appalled that this abomination would actually be considered as potential filler for this anime. This doesn't compare to the crap filler that made Naruto last over 200 episodes. It's much much worse.

The Naruto movies aren't anything amazing but they're still somewhat enjoyable. That being said Naruto is one of my favorite anime but even so, i'm gonna give this an honest unbiased review. It's a typical predictable plot with some forgettable characters but plenty of action to enjoy. Story (6). All of the Naruto movies fall into the same trap, they have a predictable/average plot. Now I wanna say first of all i don't think it's not good just because it's not apart of the main story, for the most part I like filler. However this story didn't deliver anything I haven't seen before. I was actuallylaughing at some points because I was easily able to predict what was going to happen next. One of the characters was typical as well. I didn't necessarily think the story was bad but obviously it wasn't anything special. It was functional and it had a bit of an unexpected little turn at the very end. The end itself was in typical Naruto fashion so if you're a fan as I am you'll appreciate it. There was one scene concerning the Prince and his wife that happened and usually this plot point would've been revisited at some point toward the end. For some reason they did this scene and that was it, they never came back to it. It was probably made to show more emotion within one of the characters but it didn't make me care anymore than I did already so I still don't see the point of it. Art (8) The animation was actually very good this being a movie (which usually have better animation than the anime). The characters moved very fluently and the action scenes all looked well done. The environments looked pretty good, just overall it was consistantly pretty throughout. I think this is one of the best qualities of the movie compared to the story and characters. Sound (7) The soundtrack wasn't that relevant, there weren't too many occasions where the music was played but for what it was I liked the songs when they did play them. A classic OST track was added as well at the end with a slight remix to it which was a nice touch. The outro song/montage was nice as well and I actually liked it. As usual, the general sounds were crisp and clean and nothing bothered me. For the most part everything did what it had to do. Characters (6). I gave the characters a 6 because watchers of the anime already know Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi and Rock Lee...so there's nothing new there and I didn't base the grade on them. The characters they introduced weren't special, forgettable as usual but functional as usual too. The kid I guess would be the "main" character out of the new characters. He came off as very predictable and uninteresting to me, i knew right away he was going to be a bratty scared kid in the beginning and then upon meeting Naruto he changes into a nicer more confident person. The prince (fat guy) was a bit funny to me, he wasn't anything special but worked and didn't really annoy me. The main antagonist though quite possibly has the worst name in Naruto history, i'm not gonna say it i'll leave it up to whoever watches it to see it for yourselves. There were some shinobi involved and they were over confident and weak as usual. They had a cool power but that couldn't convince me Kakashi, Naruto and Lee would lose to them...not by a long shot. The villian from the last movie was alot better in my opinion these villians weren't really good at all. The only thing they were there for was to be fought by Kakashi's team. Watching Lee fight was very entertaining though, and there was a very cool fight scene towards the end involving circus animals and kakashi. They did do a disservice by killing off a few supporting characters that seemed to be cool pretty early on and that was a bit dissapointing. Enjoymet (7) Like i said earlier i am a Naruto fan after all so in no way did i dislike this movie. In all honesty though I didn't exactly have the same experiance as i did with the regular anime. There were cool action sequences mostly envolving the ending that was nice. The beginning was a bit slow and boring but more towards the middle is when things picked up so I wasn't uninterested. Basically I don't regret watching this at all, but I don't plan on rewatching any time soon really. Overall this is a decent watch. If you're a fan of Naruto you're gonna probably watch this anyway. If you don't like Naruto I don't see why you'd watch this. Finally if you don't like filler it's up to you whether or not you want to pass this up. Like i said, if you like the show it's not a bad watch. The movie has it's moments and it's not at all terrible, That's about it. I know this was long and i apologize but if you agreed give my review a thumbs up, hope this helped (:

**THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN A FEW SPOILERS** After the improvement of the second Naruto movie surely there is a chance for the next Naruto movies to get better right? WRONG!!! That chance I was hoping for got drop-kicked out of the window as soon as I saw this movie. This movie is TERRIBLE!! and now I will make a review on it to hopefully take out all of my stress I have obtained after my view of it. Story: (2/10) The story of Naruto movie 3 begins with Naruto, Sakura, Lee, and Kakashi walking towards their next assigned mission that is meant to escort a very rich mannamed Michiru Tsuki and Hikaru Tsuki all around the world but there will be a suprise waiting for them as soon as they get to the Moon Country. Ok, so first off imagine the story of the first movie and make it 2 times more stupid and the result you will get is this movie's story. The pacing of the movie is terrible, it moves at a snail's pace and it is worse during the early half of the movie and all this time is dedicated to the characters so we as the viewers can relate to them but they are all so unlikable that I just want to stab myself the whole time. In the middle part of the movie it introduces a new conflict that just seems comes out of nowhere and it totally feels like it is out of place because there is no buildup to it in the whole early half of the movie at all. The final fight scene of the movie is supposed to be really dramatic but I just found myself laughing the whole time it was on! I mean, really? A crescent moon rasengan? Art and Animation: (4/10) The art in the first half of the movie manages to stay good but when the later half of the movie begins the art just takes a nosedive in quality. The character designs look inconsistent all the time! The backgrounds don't look as good, and the special attack visuals don't look cool at all. The animation in the movie is the same as the art in quality. The bad animation starts to look really apparent during the final fights in the movie and I would even say that the animation from the anime is much better in comparison to this. Sound: (3/10) If you thought that the soundtrack for the first movie was generic and forgettable, wait until you hear the soundtrack to this movie. The only thing I liked about it was that after 2 other movies they finally put "The Raising Fighting Spirit" song into a Naruto movie. The voice actors did a fine job voicing the characters except for the person who voice acted for Hikaru because at moments his voice would seem off. Characters: (2/10) I would say that the characters are the worst part of the movie. Naruto is still his same stupid self and him being motivational when the time calls for it. Sakura's whole role in the movie is just to fight 1 out of the 3 villains and to punch Naruto and call him a baka for any stupid things he does. Lee is supposed to be the replacement for Sasuke because of how Sasuke left with Orochimaru in the later half of the anime. Lee barely contributes anything to the story to the point that Lee could have just been not in the movie at all and all he does in movie is to fight 1 out of the 3 villains. The sad thing about Lee is that on the page of this movie and in the characters & voice actors section he is called the supporting character. Michiru had the potential of being a good character with the conflict of him wanting to get his wife back but this is quickly pushed away. Then, we have Hikaru which to me is one of the reasons why I thought the movie was bad. In the early half of the movie he is just very unlikable with how he acts and I'm sure he cried at least 10 times in the movie and I know that he is a kid but I think that that is a little too many times for him to cry. He soon learns to have more courage in one of the conflicts he runs into in the early half of the movie but after that he quickly reverts back to being a cry baby even thought the situation he was in before could have been the death of him. Finally, we have the villains. These villains are the most one dimensional villains I have ever seen because they are very undeveloped due of how little backstory they are given and the only thing they care about causing chaos. Enjoyment: (2/10) The movie was just only 1 hour and 34 minutes of suffering. Overall: (2/10) Naruto Movie 3: Dai Koufun! Mikazuki Jima no Animaru Panikku Dattebayo! is a movie that could even be an insult to the fans of the anime and for everyone else it is a piece of trash and should be forgotten as fast as possible.