"The thing I devoted my entire life to, it wasn't the gold. It was the adventure to find the gold." There's always a sense that a movie based on an anime series is going to be a throw-away story that only ends up being a cheaper version of its roots. As someone who has only watched about 50 episodes of the anime series so far, but is really getting into it, I think that does to some extent apply to this film, but I still think it's a pretty good One Piece movie, even though the title "One Piece: The Movie" is a bit too bigfor it.
It's another chance to see the characters be themselves, and although not asdetailed as the series, I think it represents the fun and adventure well enough. The new characters of Tobio and Ganzo are simple, but endearing, and I really like the resolution they come to in the end and how they both learn to respect each other more. I feel that it's easy in a film to have only the child or parent (grand-parent in this case,) learn respect for the other, but in this case it applies to both, and the ending is actually kind of heartwarming.
The film is pretty short, only clocking in at 51 minutes, including the credits and the opening song (the latter of which I would have been perfectly happy hearing in the beginning of all of the over 800 episodes of the series), but I think it's the perfect length for this series. Any longer and it would probably have dragged on. With this limited amount of time, the comedy is also a lot more fast-paced, and I think that generally works in its favor. The humor is crazy and full of personality, much the like the series, and most of it works very well. Heck, I even enjoyed how Luffy and Zoro are chained together for a decently big part of the film, and have to find out ways to keep progressing through the story while being in that state, leading to some creative moments.
I do have some problems. Two of them to be exact. For one, the flashback and backstory feel a bit rushed. One Piece is usually pretty good with its flashbacks, showing characters changed into what they are now, and how their current situations came to be. It's also very good at changing the character designs to look younger, but still recognizable, even when the flashback only goes a few years back. In this film, the characters certainly look younger, but all of the explaining is done through shouted exposition, which just isn't that engaging. It's a shame too, because otherwise their development is pretty decent.
The second problem I have is that the antagonist, El Drago, is phenomenally uninteresting. His very specific obsession with gold, (to the point where he doesn't even care about gems, only gold,) is never detailed or explained, and doesn't lead to anything at all in the end. I think the least they could have done would be come up with a funny reason for why he was so obsessed with gold and only gold, and otherwise there's not much to his personality. Even his special ability is a bit too basic, as it's pretty much just using his yelling to destroy things like the Dovahkin, (at least someone in One Piece found a use for their excessive screaming). It's a funny idea, but it's not used in a particularly creative way or build upon at all, except for a pretty humorous way for Luffy to defeat him towards the end. (It didn't make sense, but shut up, it was funny!)
But to be fair, the El Drago really wasn't the focus of the story, Tobio, Ganzo and the (supposedly) legendary pirate Woonan were, and I think their arcs were all basic, but still pretty engaging. The movie wasn't fantastic, but for what it is, it's likable, a decent amount of fun, and represents the personality of the series decently well. It's some more of One Piece to enjoy.
You know... if you didn't have enough of it already...