One Piece Film Gold has Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates arriving at Gran Tesoro, a gigantic ship that's also a city. They are treated as VIPs and quickly drawn into the city's gambling culture, egged on by their suspiciously gracious hosts. As it turns out, it’s all a setup orchestrated by Gild Tesoro, who toys with the pirates in the name of entertainment. He gets Luffy and his friends in debt, and threatens to kill Zoro if they can’t pay him off. It is then that Nami is approached by a figure from her past, who asks for her help in pulling off a heist that will take down Tesoro.
The film gets off to a raucous start that has the characters immediately fending off other pirates before being introduced to the ludicrous world of luxury that is Gran Tesoro. It barely takes a break from the action before Luffy, Usopp and Chopper are suddenly taking part in an insane death race across the entire city. This first act is ridiculously energetic, but it still manages to hit all the right expository points. It establishes the conflict, the stakes, and the level of the threat that the characters must eventually overcome.
And then, it kind of becomes a heist film. This is where the film slows down and starts piling on the convolutions. The straightforward conflict between the Straw Hat pirates and Tesoro’s gang becomes a little more complicated. We dig into a piece of Nami’s past, revealing a contentious relationship with an old partner. And then we learn a bit about the tortured history of Tesoro, and how he relates to the greater world at large. And then even more characters are introduced later on. And then the Marines get involved. And the Revolutionary Army rears its head.
And through it all, the heist just isn’t very good. There are funny moments here and there, but it just doesn’t hold together in a way that a good movie heist should. The movie just uses the elements of the genre, having its characters deal with surveillance and laser traps and guards and the like, but it doesn’t actually have it pay off in a satisfying way. It pulls off a couple of reversals that don’t make any sense whatsoever. The characters play it like they’re being clever, but the movie just doesn’t earn these developments.
The third act reverts to form, and just shows us one big battle. The film could have gotten to this point faster, but it does deliver. The threats are truly formidable, and the film makes the heroes work really hard to earn their victories. The animation is a step up from previous movies in this series, and it all operates at a scale that can at times be genuinely awe-inspiring. The extraneous elements still show up in the final battle, but it’s easier to let them pass when there’s so much action on screen.
One Piece Film Gold could be tighter. There is some merit to the idea behind the convolutions that ultimately bog down the film. There are certainly traces of worthy stories in these extraneous elements. But the film doesn’t execute them well at all, and would have been better off just delivering on the action. At the same time, one can’t really discount just how much fun this film can be. Its opening act is propulsive and ridiculous, and its final act feels momentous. There’s a lot of extra middle portion in there, but it hardly ruins the experience.
My Rating:
