Movie Review: One Piece: Film Gold

One Piece Film: Gold [2016]

 

...I never reviewed this, huh?

Out of the One Piece movies with Oda's involvement, Film: Gold has kind of been the black sheep of the family. Strong World was great because of how simple it is. Z had the best and most mature story. Stampede was kind of a mess near the end, but no one cared because of the heavy 'let's have everyone fight' fanservice. And then there's Gold, which... which is just kinda there. 

And it's kind of a shame, because Film: Gold really isn't a terrible movie at all! It's very solid! It's just... kinda there. But man, what a stylish movie, especially in the first 10 minutes. Film: Gold starts off with a musical number, "Gold & Jive ~ Silver Ocean", which... I tend to not mention music in these reviews, but this was an absolutely grand sequence. Especially when it transitions seamlessly into our obligatory "Straw Hat Pirates fight against a bunch of riffraff" at the beginning of any given movie. It's easily one of the smoothest-animated sequences of these sort that I've actually seen in a One Piece movie, and it's just kind of a shame that the rest of the movie doesn't actually live up to it. 

I actually do like the setup of the Gran Tesoro, where it's essentially shown to be a super-large resort area -- a giant, mobile Las Vegas that moves through the ocean. There's a bit of a darkness going on, though, because the loser Long Long Pirates got essentially straight-up murdered by Gild Tesoro, the leader of the country-casino, and dragged down and transformed into gold. And while we do have our Straw Hat characters have a lot of fun in gambling -- including a Wacky Races inspired segment -- it's clear that the poor is suffering in this country as well. 

And here's probably where something that most fans probably noticed about One Piece. The movies tend to be a bit of a riff on a recent arc in the manga or anime, and this one is basically just Dressrosa, but with a casino flair and with a lot less setup. A country that looks so happy, but the underbelly hides a lot of sins. 

As our Straw Hats run along and make some fun, they eventually enter the 'VIP' lounge with the alluring Baccarat, who later uses the power of her Luck Luck Fruit to sabotage Luffy during a winning streak... though, to be fair, Luffy is being an idiot by going 'all in' with basically every bet he does. With this loss, Gild Tesoro shows up and enforces the rules of the casino, trapping Zoro and taking him out of the rest of the movie with his awakened Gold Gold Fruit. He holds Zoro hostage, and our heroes need to pay back their debt before a certain time. 

...and then the movie's pacing kind of languishes. One of Gild Tesoro's lackeys, Carina, show up and reveals herself to be Nami's old friend. They talk a bit about how they had a shared backstory and... and I appreciate it because it's trying to make this into a bit of a Nami focus (the way Stampede had a strong Usopp focus) but a lot of the actual Nami/Carina stuff is just briefly alluded to and feels incomplete if you haven't watched Heart of Gold, the accompanying anime-special-episode. 

The subsequent heist segment is actually pretty fun, mostly due to the animation and the energetic voice-acting, but it doesn't last really all that long when Luffy and Franky find themselves in the 'prison' area, and I felt like that's probably the weakest part of the movie because the whole 'we can survive if we have the motivation' resolution by the morale-dead prisoners felt a bit too cheap. 

Speaking of the movie feeling incomplete, so is Gild Tesoro's backstory. You can piece together his backstory by looking at the brief bits of one-panel flashbacks that he has throughout the movie, and his weird antics like being angry at people who laugh without his permission, and his brief dialogue with Spandam at around this point in the movie... but a lot of Gild Tesoro's backstory -- that he was a poor slave who tried to buy the freedom of the slave woman he loves, only for that to be thrown in his face by a Celestial Dragon, thus leading to his warped mentality of 'money is power'... all of that is in the movie, but you really have to be dissecting the movie to find it out. Apparently there's some prequel comic or hand-out that explains Tesoro's backstory in the theaters, which... yeah. For most casual viewers, Tesoro just ends up feeling like a poor man's Doflamingo. 

Unlike Z and Stampede, the subplots here really don't make too much sense either. Spandam showing up is... okay, sure, but then we get an entire subplot of the Revolutionaries having an agent within Gran Tesoro -- Raise Max. Who... who I think is meant to be kooky-yet-inspirational, but ends up just feeling kind of incompetent. This is my second time watching Film: Gold in preparation to do this review and the scene in the prison with Raise Max and the other prisoners just feels like very... basic and drags on and on. There's a lot of neat symbolism here, of course -- the prisoners are stuck in a prison filled with a lot of gold that they can't do anything about... but all that sequence just feels kind of long. Toss in the obligatory "oh no, poor oppressed children" subplot running concurrently through it, and it's just a bit too much. Take out one or two of these sub-plots, and replace it with Gild Tesoro's backstory, which I feel would've also made the same point. 

The multi-chess-play revelation that 'oh, it's a trap by Tesoro' and then 'oh, Carina anticipated it' are cool, sure, but you can't tell me that they banked on Luffy and Franky somehow coming into that flooded room just at the right time? 

Anyway, through these convoluted series of events, they caused Gran Tesoro's golden powder shows to shoot out seawater instead, nullifying the power of Gild Tesoro's gold flakes that he has injected within every person within Gran Tesoro... at which point friendship is more important than money, yadda yadda yadda, time for the final fight. 

Oh, somewhere around this point, Sabo and Lucci have a fight that we don't get to see outside of Gild Tesoro. It's like, the movie wants to insert a lot of cameos here, yeah? Just like Z and Stampede? Spandam shows up, Doflamingo is Gild Tesoro's benefactor, et cetera... except... if you're going to include hype characters like Lucci and Sabo, I think keeping them almost entirely offscreen after a single clash is going to piss off the audience more than make them happy. 

Anyway, the final battle is... it's all right, I guess. Luffy going Gear Fourth and facing off against Tesoro is kind of whatever. Tesoro transforms himself into a giant golden statue robot version of himself, and... okay, that's a form of awakening, I guess? His money-makes-right mantra gets challenged when his fodder goons start to run away, but ultimately it just boils down to him ranting and yelling and shooting golden lasers before Luffy ultimately does a huge Gomu Gomu Leo Rex Bazooka to knock him down. 

Gild Tesoro's goons are a bit more fun. Zoro faces off against Dice, who's masochistic and gets all excited any time he gets cut, but there's really no proper sense of threat from him. Tanaka, the weird cat-man with Kitty Pryde powers, is a lot more interesting, and I actually like that it's Robin abusing her Hana Hana no Mi powers to grab Tanaka since she figured out that the cat-man (?) can't phase through organic matter. And, of course, the fan-favourite from this movie, Baccarat and her Luck Luck Fruit, ends up with the most fun action sequence and gets appropriately defeated by Usopp 'using up' all her luck. 

Ultimately, though, the climax kind of falls a bit flat. I really did feel like the writers and creators of this movie wanted to make a point with Tesoro -- of someone who was oppressed and abused, but ultimately became the very system that oppresses and abuses and takes away from others. But the movie itself is so kind of confused and muddled, and the dialogue in the final fight kind of devolves into generic shonen protagonist fare.

The animation and voice-acting of this movie is still great, and I wouldn't say the movie is bad... but it's definitely the weakest one out of the (currently) four Oda-penned One Piece Films.