It’s no secret that ninja films are generally not regarded as the artistic height of cinema and it’s certainly true that most movie adaptations of videogames are unsatisfying. Therefore, is it really surprising that the animated “Ninja Gaiden” film is not very entertaining? It’s just a mess of a movie.

Loosely inspired by the “Ninja Gaiden” videogame franchise, we follow ninja Ryu Hayabusa as he embarks on a dangerous quest to stop a mad scientist from creating mutant monsters and unleashing some ancient evil. There are various subplots but of course, it all quickly descends into an endless onslaught of mutants being sliced by a ninja sword.

This is a really short film that is well under an hour yet they throw way too many characters in here. None of them get enough time on the screen for you to really understand any of them. For some reason, the makers of this film decided to change Ryu Hayabusa’s outfit. Why would you not just give him his normal ninja costume? That’s like when Luigi didn’t have a moustache in “Super Mario Bros. The Movie”. The bad guy is completely forgettable. This is a Japanese animated film where you see so many monsters getting chopped into pieces that I almost felt like I was watching “Vampire Hunter D” at times.

“Ninja Gaiden” just tries to do way too much with far too little time to do it in. The animation is reasonably good but the script is all over the place. I think that the “Ninja Gaiden” franchise has the potential to be the source material for a good movie but it’s such a shame that this is yet another example of a bad film being based on a computer game. Even if you are massively into “Ninja Gaiden” then just stick to the games. There’s nothing here that you really need to see. If you want a good ninja film then try “Revenge of the Ninja”.