One Piece Film Gold, a canon movie that takes place right after Dressrosa, impressed me almost as much as it surprised me.
As my first movie from a series with very many movies, I expected it to be slightly-above-average for a mini story, but it's more than that.
Right from the intro scenes, it feels like a VIP experience: quick and flashy introduction of our beloved straw hats, in new fancy outfits, and matching flamboyant scenery, with jokes, laughter, and enthusiasm as they enter. Throughout the whole movie, the music, designs, and everything all give a feel to match the golden place they enter. And just the production overall is pretty stunning for a 2016 movie.
And despite taking place literally after Dressrosa, the power scalings are kept intact and everything is logical, which is something I worried it'd mess up.
It doesn't even follow the usual side-story format you'd expect. One of the straw hats is taken out of commission. There were many parts where I thought "Ok, cool, good movie, now they're gonna have Luffy beat up the bad guy and end the movie, yay", but the movie did not do that, it still went on, and had plenty more to offer. Yet even so it didn't feel drawn out; the pacing is perfect.
And as a special note, Film Gold has more surprises and plot twists than one movie should be allowed to have. You go right into it thinking 'oh, that's suspicious. those people might betray these people?' but the surprises never end. You're kept guessing, both in the fights and in the alliances, until the crazy end twist.
Film Gold does get pretty dark pretty fast, with straight-up death early on. It wastes no time creating a deep plot ad getting right to it. The dark parts have even higher stakes later on in the movie, with more people and a theme of despair / hope.
Besides that, there are multiple perspectives shown, not just the protagonists'. Even the 'bad guy' characters have their own, complex, motivations, which are shown in gradual flashbacks, and while alot of details are intentionally left out, it all paints a clear (and somewhat tragic) picture by the end.
And the side characters exclusive to this movie are golden too. They have style as well as depth, and I wouldn't mind if more of them were kept for the main show (especially Raise Max).
That depends. If you don't really care for side movies, then you can pass it just fine. If you are looking for a really fun movie, and you are past Dressrosa, then I do recommend. It literally does everything I could ask of a movie. I am personally really looking forward to watching more One Piece movies after this.
