Review of Naruto the Movie 2: Legend of the Stone of Gelel

Watched it while I was animating. These films have some good moments, but overall they're mediocre at best. In this one especially, there was hardly any set up and the story just rushed forward with hardly anything to ground or invest you in what was going on. There were multiple characters, Gaara and Kankuro especially, who were drastically underused and really had no purpose in being in this movie. I really love those characters, so it was disappointing to see them not do much. Also, a bunch of the fight scenes took place in dark or dimly lit settings which sort of made it difficultto see what was going on.

Again, like the previous movie, its pretty much three or four episodes combined to make one continuous story. It's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it also doesn't add much narratively to the overall story of the show. Fun movie, but I probably won't watch it again.