Boruto: Naruto the Movie

Naruto was a Shonen manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto that ran between the years of 2002 and 2017. Considered to be one of the most popular anime for American audiences when it was released (along with Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and One Piece), Naruto shaped together an over-arching plotline involving betrayals, reanimation, philosophy, and trust, along with the occasional anime trope and a whole ton of action. A lot of the story beats were interesting, the visuals had good design and color, the action sequences kept people engaged, and despite its excess of filler, its relationship between the main hero and villain were handled very well. It has side characters that are under-written, the villains are repetitive and dull, and it’s plagued with its own annoying anime tropes, but overall, it’s a pretty great show and obviously, a franchise this popular would get a bunch of movies: Boruto: Naruto the Movie was a little different from the rest of them though. Set several years after the events of the original show, Naruto (voiced by Maile Flanagan) has achieved his dream of becoming the Hokage, the leader of his village and has helped changed the ninja village into a thriving community in a time of peace. Though successful in business, his family life isn’t as perfect as he doesn’t have much time to spend with them, which earns disdain from his son, Boruto (voiced by Amanda C. Miller). Wishing his father would notice him more, Boruto has resorted to acting out in more subtle ways than his father did; actively announcing his dislike of him, working with his dad’s former rival, Sasuke (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal) and even obtaining a device that enables him to use any chakra attack he desires, which Naruto sees as very anti-ninja. Before any of these issues can be resolved, two threats arrive in the form of alien creatures called Kinshiki and Momoshiki (voiced by Wally Wingert and Xander Mobus) to steal Naruto to obtain the powers he holds inside him. Now feeling more confident and wanting to properly make amends to his father, Boruto will make a name for himself by travelling with Sasuke to get Naruto back. Meant as a closer for the original series and an opener for the new series, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, which premier in 2017, this movie works nicely as both.

Despite what the synopsis states, the movie isn’t really about Naruto’s kidnapping and Boruto and Sasuke going to save him. That could have functioned as the plot and arguably would’ve been more similar to the previous movies they’ve made, but the direction they decide to go in is actually a lot more engaging. It’s not a movie that can be walked into without knowing the show (it doesn’t try to hold your hand at all in that regard), but for those aware, it knows it doesn’t need a recap and instead tackles something new. The focus is on what it should be, the characters and their emotional dilemmas. Since this was supposed to be an intro to a new series, it’s important to set the groundwork for what it’s going to focus on, and it does a surprisingly nice job at that. The script for this film written by Kishimoto along with Ukyō Kodachi is pretty good and delivers a plot about a son’s struggle to connect with a highly famous and even distant father in a very engaging manner and does so while changing the established world in the process. It’s a familiar world to the original, but it feels updated and new, recognizable characters are there, but the focus is on the new ones, and while certain things are kept the same, the changes made help to really set this apart from its previous. It’s nice to see that the creators of Naruto aren’t just going to do the exact same thing as they did before even when that earned them huge reception. The changes get people excited for new possibilities and the variety in which things can be treated in this world that’s more modern and technological offers a brand-new method of engaging with a similar narrative. The developments with the characters and how they are adjusting works as a great crutch for the movie; Boruto’s slow acceptance of his father’s as well as Naruto’s realization of his problems works for a nice bit of development for them both and allows the movie to focus on both the new and old generation without it feeling gimmicky. It balances out time for both sides for the audience to get an idea of what they’re going through, but the movie actually could’ve benefited from taking its time with these moments even more so. The director for this movie was Hiroyuki Yamashita, who worked as an animator for the show and had his directorial debut with this film, and as a first time out, it’s not too bad. You can feel that he’s comfortable in this world, all three of the leads are given time to shine, and the scale of the animation and the action is pretty good, but faults do show themselves as the film keeps going. There are quite a few good scenes in this movie, but the first act’s rather quick pace makes these moments fly past really quickly and doesn’t allow them the time to properly sink in. Also, the movie’s climax feels kind of forced in; it feels like the movie’s B-plot involving the bag guys doesn’t contribute much to the movie outside of giving excuses for the characters to fight off something. It wraps itself up nice enough, but it doesn’t feel like something that matched with the rest of the movie.

Introducing a brand-new cast of characters into a sequel series of something so beloved is a great idea but could be a bit risky if the characters aren’t handled in that great a way, but thankfully, the direction they seem to be taking some of them in shows promise. This is more talking about the lead characters as the side characters (both new and old) don’t contribute anything and only exist to fill positions for moments in the movie. Characters like Sarada, who is Sasuke’s daughter (voiced by Cherami Leigh) is and Mitsuki, who is the son of one of Naruto’s former enemies (voiced by Robbie Draymond) feel like characters that could become something but aren’t really given much here. The real stars of the movie are Boruto, Naruto and Sasuke. Boruto does unfortunately suffer from having too many similar attributes to his father (hairstyle, similar personality, they even give him the same outfit by the end), but the new stuff added is actually pretty interesting (hating his father for being Hokage, training with Sasuke to turn out like him, utilizing new technology to cheat at being a better ninja, etc.) The similarities drag it down, but the new stuff saves it just enough. He’s not a great character, but it leaves room open for him to grow and possibly get better within his own series. The developments they take with Naruto and Sasuke are also pretty good; it doesn’t just feel like fan-service, they are incorporated into the lead characters story and are used in interesting ways that come from this new position, and it legitimately feels like they are still making them evolve, not just forcing them in because fans would complain if they weren’t. Naruto’s struggles as a father and Sasuke’s teaching of Boruto and his daughter are interesting concepts that provide good new problems and insights into familiar characters. Unfortunately, the villains really suck in this movie; they have stupid designs, forgettable motivation, no sense of threat or intrigue and only exist to give the characters something to fight at the end, but they are so secondary and so forgettable that they practically feel like speed bumps in the movie.

The animation manages to look and feel similar to other projects connected to Naruto involving its own show and its several movies, but it also feels pretty different at the same time. It has the benefit of having an animation director for the franchise also be the director of the movie, and that experience comes through in the character designs and the fight sequences. A lot of the characters designs for the new and old characters are really good; giving distinctive elements to new characters that help them visually stand-out and having old characters look different to show the passage of time. The colors are really vibrant and really pop even more than they did in the original series and the motion is a lot more fluid than usual. The original series worked great with close-up detail and far-off motion but did sometimes prefer big and explosive visuals over clear and well-structured ones. Here, the animation is big in scale and color, but it’s also well drawn and solid enough to not feel shapeless. It can be hard sometimes to make certain moves out because of how quickly its edited and overall, most of the action is pretty useless as its mostly relegated to the end where there are no real stakes as nothing about said part of the story holds any weight, but it’s not poorly done either. Honestly, the best action is when the kids are participating in the tournament (or rather Boruto is). It’s literally only two short fights, but it’s actually tying into what the story is trying to focus on, so it holds more weight, and the new technological ways Chakra energy is being manipulated is a lot more interesting, whereas the climax is just giving exactly what people have already seen before without much variety or emotional investment.

For a franchise that’s lasted this long and with a movie track record that feels very action first, story later, this was a very pleasant surprise. Boruto as a franchise has received mixed reception and has only recently started to win people over with its direction, but it seems like everybody found this movie to be a pleasant sit and that makes sense. It’s doing something different with a familiar name and it finds that right balance of what to keep focus on and what to leave out. In an entertainment medium that could so easily just do the same thing with a sequel series about the previous main character’s kid, it’s really great to see this try to do the exact opposite in some respects, but still with a clear goal and motivation. The new ideas and concepts for this world sound fascinating, the new characters aren’t great but seem like they could grow on you, some of the old characters are used well and it’s a visual very pleasing movie. Sure, the villains suck, the side characters are useless, and the pacing is a bit off, but Naruto was already plagued with that to begin with, so it truly does feel like a remnant of the past. Not for newcomers, but for veterans, this is a ‘’pretty far away from lame’’ movie.