This movie begins with a narration akin to that of Gold Rogers's declaration at the beginning of One piece. The premise is near identical to that of One piece itself, and from this, it can be discerned what type of movie the writers were going for. A story that will stick with one piece fans by connecting to what's already been established in the one piece story as strongly as possible.

There's a tonne of comedy and gags played out at the beginning of the film. There are hits and misses, more misses than hits. The movie is trying to play it safe and keep a similar tone to the anime, hence why the premise is as generic as it gets being a rehash of one pieces own premise. But for the first movie that's not a bad idea. It tries to capture the charm of the one piece anime and it does to some extent, some of the character interactions are enjoyable but it lacks refinement. There is a sense of exaggeration in the comedy and the character's personalities. We're jumping from comedy scene to comedy scene or a display of one of the straw hats personality traits. Like 10 mins in we get the Luffy pirate king speech with the inspiring music and it's very random, like the writers are trying to check off things that make it more one piece.

Usopp finds himself with the villain of the movie which is interesting and does provide for some funny situations and shenanigans. The power scaling is kinda off the charts. The villain el Drago does this big ass blast at the beginning and then his subordinate eviscerates a huge hill. Something well beyond what Zoro has done at that point. The kid Tobio is kinda pointless. His character is given a motivation but it's all very surface level. He's like a character a writer thought up in like 20 seconds and didn't put much effort into developing. Of course, the issue is the film length, there isn't much time to give him a more realized character. He's supposed to be that third-party character that the straw hats meet and decide to help, but he's very one note.

The best storytelling is done in the flashback of Woonan and Ganzo. Where their relationship is established and so is the theme of the movie. This follows the phrase all that is gold does not glitter In essence, it calls into question the superficiality of gold, and how leading a simple but fulfilling life with your loved ones is better than superficial treasures. It ends with ganzo and woonan hanging on to a tree branch about to fall off a cliff. Ganzo sacrifices himself and let's go to save woonan, it's interesting to note the symbolism as woonan is holding on to his pirate flag in order to keep himself from falling. The flag is also about to tear apart, so ganzos sacrifice is for woonans ambitions in both a literal but also symbolic way. It also ties into the earlier theme of one piece where you have the comparison of sentimental treasures vs literal treasure.

The fights are a mixed bag, zoros fight is way too short but the Luffy fight is actually quite good. The choreography is pretty solid. The ending with Woonans realisation was cool and a nice conclusion to the arc. Looking at his mountain of gold, all alone he remembers the quote "Gold can't laugh, it's just like a rock" Still he has no regrets and realises the true value was in the adventure he undertook to get the gold. It's all very core and classic one piece themes at play.
The movie clearly needed an extra 30 minutes to bake and expand on its concepts but a decent first movie