This month I bring to you an anime about ninja. Now, don't get your hopes up, it isn't “Naruto.” I've been meaning to do that, but it's what, 122 episodes? That's a lot of ninja to watch, so unfortunately, I have to review this movie: “Wrath of the Ninja: The Yotoden.”
Most ninja movies, or movies with ninja in them are fairly cool. We're always treated to the cool little ninja tricks people love so very much—disappearing into a log, reappearing behind a villain and slitting their throat. A ninja getting a bajillion ninja stars thrown at him and he magically dodges them all. Or, my personal favorite: “Kage-buunshin no jutsu!” It's shadow replication … a Naruto thing.
Regardless of all the cool little ninja tricks, this movie still somehow manages to be sub par. The basic plot is that this ninja needs to find three mystical blades so she can defeat this evil ninja trying to take over. Cliché, really. What is with evil trying to take over all the time? Doesn't it have anything better to do? It is always thwarted; I'd think it'd learn its lesson by now. Regardless, it keeps trying and that's where this movie takes us.
The three mystical blades belong to three separate ninja. The main character must find these ninja and use the blades to stop evil. At the very beginning, the main character accidentally stumbles across one ninja with a sword, and then conveniently, the other. So, we have the three ninja's all together and they decide to fight the evil. I must admit, every five minutes the viewer is treated to a rather intense action sequence, so the movie certainly wasn't boring.
The voice acting is OK for it being dubbed. At times, it's spot on, and at other times, it really seems like they either don't care, or can't read English very well. The animation wasn't bad, but I've seen far better. There are a few scenes, with glowing blood on black background, and silvery, shining blades that make for really cool animation, and there's the scene where everyone is fighting in the rain, and there's that wonderful fog effect. I suppose the animation passes, considering the movie was released in 1989.
However, the storyline is boring. I mean, three ninjas fight, fight, fight and fight. There's very little character depth. Bad guys are just put there to be bad. We're not greeted with enemies you'd like to know more about. This isn't “Trigun” or “Cowboy Bebop” where the villains have tremendous back-stories, and you kind of get to know them. No. That's not what this is, this is Random_Villain_246, please report to the set to be brutally cut down by the hero. Thank you.
That's the level of depth this has. And it's frustrating to watch. You don't even get to know the main characters.
This movie is a sit-though. It's not enough to turn it off, but it makes you want to do something else while it's on.
Music: The music really isn't bad. It isn't … good, but it's not bad. It's just music. Nothing to dance to, or buy the soundtrack for. 4/10.
Animation: The animation is probably the best point to this movie. That's really sad too, because I've seen much better. However, I probably wouldn't have seen it in 1989. So, it's pretty good. 6/10.
Action: Lots of action. Lots and lots of fight scenes. Again, and again and again. Really, this movie is nothing but fighting. Fighting fighting fighting. The action is good; it's just that the reason for fighting isn't great. 7/10.
Story: Well, there's a war, and some ancient blades that need to be found and three ninja that need to do the finding and then there's fighting and more fighting, whining about the fighting and then more fighting. Ugh. It's just … average. The whole movie is just average. 4/10. |
