Citius, altius, fortius! Films on the so-called "eternal ongoings" is a special phenomenon. They are not independent works and it is wrong to evaluate them in isolation from the series. There will always be someone for whom this film will be the first acquaintance with the world, but this is more the exception than the rule. Basically, such films are designed for people for a long time and tightly "sitting on a needle." Such films are usually side story of the original story, non-canonical story offshoots. Chronologically, they are inserted during the end of a certain story arc and before the beginning of the next, showing what adventures occurred with the characters between the events of the main plot. This approach has a number of features affecting both the production of the film and its perception by the viewer. Making a good movie based on a popular TV series is much more difficult than making just a good movie.
On the one hand, the authors are given an already promoted brand that has a whole army of fans. This is guaranteed to attract viewers to the audience and allow the film to pay off regardless of what is filmed there. On the other hand, the film will inevitably be compared to the series. The characters must remain recognizable. Heroes are even more difficult. It is worth in some scene to portray a character too strong or too weak and the anger of fans cannot be avoided. It is necessary to be as similar as the original, but at the same time give the viewer something new. Fans of TV shows go to movies to see the same thing, but bigger, more colorful and richer. And then there is another limitation - the plot. You can’t give the characters of the story some abilities that they are not yet due to the chronology of the plot, and there are not many ways to impress the viewer. You either come up with some tricks for the characters, which they then for some reason forget and never use during the main plot, or you try to somehow beat the already existing ones in a new way. The second method is more complicated, but fans perceive it more painlessly. This is the path chosen by the creators of Strong World.
In fact, they slightly replayed the events of the recently completed arch (Enies Lobby) and allowed you to look again at similar experiences, colorful battles and powerful techniques. The authors succeeded in the warhead. To look again at the recently acquired characters techniques to the audience, of course, interesting, but the plot part is much inferior. Differences from the recently completed arch play the plot more in the minus. One "lady in danger" was replaced by another - and the intensity of passions is not the same, the antagonists were changed - but for much fainter characters, the scene was changed. The latter is well received. New locations are colorful and interesting.
A word about the scenes. It seems that Eiichiro Oda’s role in the creation of this film was that he gave the director a notebook with drafts. A number of scenes are clearly variants of the events already shown (the first and second meetings of the characters with the main antagonist), and some, almost unchanged, will get into the original series much later (Zoro and Sanji clear the way for the captain).
Compared with other One Piece films, the quality of the picture should be noted. It was by far the best thing that came out at the time. The character design is very good. Fanservice is less than in the seventh film and less aggressive. But the story is less interesting and more stamped than say 7 or 6 movies. Fight level. It is interesting to watch the series, but no more.
6 out of 10