The last few months have been quite eventful for Team 7 (comprised of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura), what with their successful completion of the Chuunin exam and the prevention of the attack on Konoha village by the evil Orochimaru.  However, seeing as how that has all died down now, it seems like the perfect time to resume their training and undertake some missions to gain valuable experience.  Their first new assignment is to escort a somewhat self-centred actress by the name of Fujimi Yuki who is travelling to the Snow County to shoot her new movie.  At first glance, this may seem like a relatively routine mission but when our heroes are ambushed by a group of Ninjas looking to get hold of Miss Yuki, things are about to get interesting.

Adapting a popular television series into a feature length movie is always a risky venture but having recently enjoyed 'Cowboy Bebop: The Movie', I had renewed faith that it was possible to branch out and still retain the magic.  When it came to the anime Naruto, I assumed that this would be a simple transition as the stories are generally told across several episodes and theoretically it should have been easy to convert one arc into a 90 minute movie.  However, rather than expand upon the outstanding adventures seen within the series, this first film is something of a disappointment as it fails to capitalise on any of the already established parameters.  Instead, the writers have chosen to create a standalone quest that appears to be aimed at the casual viewer with no developments in either the characters or the story.  This approach severely harms any attempts at depth as our heroes gain very little from the experience and the concept of a film within a film removes a lot of the mysticism of the Naruto world.  Added to this, the popular figures of Sasuke and Sakura are pushed into the background and their various individual problems seem to have been forgotten whilst they deal with this particular operation.

In the action department, Naruto has always been a strong contender (if you've never seen it, check out the first 100 episodes for some truly outstanding moments) but the movie rarely rivals the series for thrills, with only a couple of real fight scenes to speak of.  Although these are okay to watch, it's mainly Naruto that gets to let rip with his Ninjutsu so the Rasengen and Shadow Clone technique (known as "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu") are recycled heavily.  As most fans will tell you, these are featured prominently in the series and it has to be said that they have been employed to much better effect when Naruto was still mastering the moves.  It's also a real shame that a few of the more interesting characters are absent (such as Gaara or Rock Lee) as their presence would have greatly assisted in this area, especially when you consider that the enemy Ninjas they encounter possess very few actual skills.

Strangely enough for such a popular series, the actual animation techniques for Naruto have always varied in quality. The main reason for this was because several different animation studios were responsible for working on various segments of the series which meant there were points when our heroes would look a little shaky.  This trait became particularly apparent in the latter stages of the series when they strayed away from the original manga and the creators were clearly struggling for original ideas.   However, I 'm pleased to say that this is not an issue that affects the movie as you can clearly see the continuity in the artist's techniques and the film maintains a clean and crisp look throughout.

Even though Naruto's first attempt at a film is relatively harmless fun that manages to maintain your interest, it is unlikely to completely satisfy hardcore Naruto fans or convert any potential newcomers to the franchise.  In hindsight, the producers would have been better off pulling together the finer elements of the series rather than trying to appeal to a handful of possible new fans.