Kinda good but also kinda not. While Film Red certainly tries to do a lot of interesting things, I feel that the only one of them that it does really well is the music, which was sort of a given considering Ado's known talent. Uta was a good villain as far as these sorts of movies go, her motivation was good and it was interesting to see how someone completely disconnected from the world of One Piece would try to rectify what they see as problems. What I really didn't like in the movie was its over-reliance on cameos and guest characters, which seriously interferes with the flow of the film. While some inclusions make sense (Koby, Helmeppo, Bartolomeo to a lesser extent), some feel really forced. Like did we really need Blueno, Kalifa, Kizaru, Fujitora, Katakuri, Oven, AND Brulee to take up so much of the movie when the Straw Hats barely get anything to do? I would have much rather some of these characters been cut or given more interesting roles in the story.
Despite being the film's namesake and a major part of the marketing push, Shanks really only shows up for about one-third of the movie, and even then he's not very consequential until the final battle. For the sake of fairness, I do have to mention that seeing his crew in action after such a long wait was really cool, but went by a little too quickly to leave much of an impact. In fact, just about everything about the Red Hair Pirates in this movie just feels like sort of a cheap way to garner more interest in a story that would otherwise be less interesting to the One Piece fandom at large. Also, Tot Musica is an insane bullcrap addition to the film, rivaled only by those ridiculous volcano things from Film Z.
Although I was very critical of the way that this film handled certain elements, I do still believe it's a pretty solid addition to the One Piece films, even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of some of the more recent outings. The film has a lot of crowd-pleasing moments and some truly spectacular music and animation, even if it is muddled by the subpar story and the abundance of forced fan service. Also, my ranking of the most recent five One Piece films:
Review by Erick Z.BlockedParent2023-05-22T02:07:16Z
First, I'd clarify the reason why I watched this movie is because I'm watching all the movies from the 1,000 "Box Office Mojo's All Time Worldwide Box Office". I usually don't watch movies without watching the prequels, but in the case, the prequel for this would be around 1,000 episodes of the One Piece anime and 14 other movies...so I wasn't going to do that.
So, is this movie understandable for the people who haven't watched the prequels? Basically, yes, but also, I'm sure that whatever made fans enjoy this, is precisely that, having the context for the actions happening in this movie. I can imagine having that many characters might have been epic for them, but for the rest of us, it just helps create a mess of a movie that spends too long going nowhere.
Overall, this is not a movie I'd recommend for anyone unless you are familiar with One Piece, even I'll dare to compare it with the "Demon Slayer Movie: Mugen Train" because that movie is also part of that list I mentioned, but it does a much better job at telling a story, both, understandable for the general audience that haven't watched the anime (because I haven't watched anything else from Demon Slayer previously either) and in making a movie that actually feels like a movie and not like a long episode. I don't know the general pacing of a One Piece episode, but nothing about this felt epic enough to be a movie. Should have been an episode, a season finale if you shall, but not a movie.