How the hell do these articles keep getting so long. The movie reviews were supposed to be quick reads, just a paragraph or so! I’m pretty sure they started as blurbs, but like all of my projects, I eventually start writing until there are no more words to write, and doubling my workload for no particularly good reason.

Well, I’ve got a meaty one for you all this week, full of diverse movie reviews, as well as the requisite dash of One Piece. Having spent most of the year so far powering through dozens of episodes a week, it’s a little unnerving to consider that I’m less than a hundred episodes from the finish line. Fortunately, Wano is such a visual upgrade for the series that I really can’t watch at the pace I used to, and am now forced to actually appreciate each episode with my full, undivided attention. “One Piece has gotten too beautiful to speed-watch” is a pretty nice problem to have, so I’ve few complaints as we enter the show’s current arc. In the meantime, let’s burn down some fresh films!

First up this week was 47 Meters Down, a movie about two sisters who go cage-diving with sharks, only to become trapped when their cage’s winch snaps, sending them all the way to the ocean floor. Like most films in this space, 47 Meters is tasked with doing a great deal with very few dramatic variables, relying largely on the suffocating tension of its base scenario to keep energy high. In this, it absolutely succeeds – the ocean floor offers a satisfying parade of life-or-death hurdles, and the film is able to take strong advantage of the inherent terror of swimming through a void, uncertain where the threat lies.

The cinematography is also quite solid, and there are a couple genuinely impressive images related to their slow rising process. Unfortunately, along with a weak script, 47 Meters’ central flaw is that neither of its leads can really act. With neither Mandy Moore nor costar Claire Holt able to sell their lines, 47 Meters Down’s emotional content falls entirely flat – fortunately, the film’s actual star is its ocean venue, and it captures that with style to spare. Not a spectacular watch, but a fine enough monster flick.

After that, we checked out Near Dark, a film that Wikipedia describes as a “neo-western vampire horror movie.” That, plus some twitter recommendations, plus the fact that it was directed by Katheryn Bigelow and featured Bill Paxton, all made it seem like this would be precisely my jam.

As it turns out, while “neo-western vampire horror movie” is close to technically correct, it doesn’t really describe this movie at all. The film centers on a young man named Caleb who falls for a girl named Mae, and soon finds himself enlisted into her roaming band of vampires. There’s an inherent dash of western twang to the film’s overt style, but Near Dark is more fundamentally a story like The Badlands or Bonnie and Clyde, focused on two kids who’ve fled from their mundane lives, only to discover the larger world is beyond their control or comprehension.

Near Dark at times feels like a movie at war with itself, uncertain whether it wants to embrace camp vampire excess or smolder with the desperate longing of its two leads. Both Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen (Bishop from the Alien franchise) turn in great performances as larger-than-life vampires, and basically steal every scene they’re present for. In contrast, Caleb and Mae mostly sulk in the background, and frankly don’t share enough words to build any sort of convincing romance. It’s not a great situation when a film’s central relationship is its weakest element, but Bigelow still manages to find a sort of anthemic longing in her portrayal of both their relationship and the American southwest, while Paxton and Henriksen keep things from ever getting boring. I wouldn’t recommend this one, but it was certainly an interesting watch.

After that, we checked out Gunpowder Milkshake, a new action drama starring Karen Gillan as a young assassin, and Lena Headey as the mother who abandoned her. Gunpowder Milkshake has style to spare, roaring out the gate with ostentatious neon highlights, anachronistic 80s-by-way-50s-by-way-of-modern decor, and defiantly indulgent slow-mo sequences. By the twenty minute mark, I was wondering if this film, as pretty and proud as it was, could actually pull off an action scene – and then Karen Gillan dismantled three men at a bowling alley, leading into a second half brimming with creative action setpieces.

Gunpowder Milkshake is an unabashedly post-John Wick film, embracing much of its inspiration’s structure and style, while still making plenty of room for its own identity. That’s not a complaint; Wick essentially revitalized the American action movie format, and any film that’s not stealing from it is likely being left behind. And what Milkshake actually brings to the format more than separates it from its predecessors: an incredible mind for ludicrous action setpieces (“let’s have Gillan fight the three dudes she already beat to death… but now her arms are tranquilized, so she just has to swing them around like clubs”), a snappy, character-rich script, and an incredibly strong supporting cast.

Karen Gillan has put in more than enough franchise work to prove her talent, and her fatigued acceptance of each new bullshit problem makes her an eminently likable action star. She is great at being exhausted, and this film gives her plentiful reasons to be; meanwhile, Lena Headey is as commanding, intimidating, and quietly funny as ever, proving once again that she’s likely the best talent to emerge from Game of Thrones. I frankly hope this means she does get to emerge from Game of Thrones – the backlash to that franchise’s conclusion seems to have significantly dimmed the fortunes of its stars, but Headey is goddamn amazing, and I hope her star continues to rise.

Meanwhile, Gunpowder Milkshake’s secondary cast is a murderer’s row of ridiculous talent. Headey’s old companions include Angela Bassett and goddamn Michelle Yeoh, who each get to do some delightfully terrible things to very bad men. Gillan’s contact for assassinations is friggin’ Paul Giamatti, who lends a great sense of moral conflict to a role that could easily feel perfunctory in lesser hands. And the villain is Ralph Ineson, the gravel-voiced man who played The Witch’s suspicious patriarch, and who absolutely nails a third-act soliloquy seemingly intended just to remind us what a good actor he is. Even Michael Smiley, who I loved in Kill List, shows up to play an entirely against-type mob doctor with seedy relish. With great style, great action scenes, and an utterly outstanding cast, Gunpowder Milkshake is an altogether excellent time at the movies.

Next up was The Magnificent Seven, John Sturges’ Western response to Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. I’d never seen this film before, but Seven Samurai is one of my absolute favorite movies, so it was delightful to recognize all the ways Sturges drew from Kurosawa’s masterpiece. The Magnificent Seven is an excellent film in its own right, but also a remarkable act of fealty to its source material.

Narrative-wise, The Magnificent Seven follows Seven Samurai’s progression to the letter. A Mexican village is harassed by bandits, and after consulting with the village elder, the villagers elect to buy weapons and gunman to finally free themselves. After witnessing an act of selfless bravery by a wandering warrior, they appeal to his fatigue and better nature, and he reluctantly assembles a crew of top-shelf warriors to fight for almost nothing. The process of prepping for battle reveals the painful fault lines separating those who work the land from those who prey upon it, and ultimately, both films end in a climactic siege that simultaneously represents the end of a lawless era.

The Magnificent Seven hits all of these Seven Samurai beats, while cutting basically all of Kurosawa’s meditative scenes of characters just walking, sitting, or waiting for something to happen. These edits don’t make for an unusually fast-paced production; they simply highlight the differences between Kurosawa’s and Hollywood’s mid-century styles, with Magnificent Seven still feeling appropriately languorous when it has to. Meanwhile, the casting does a phenomenal job of echoing Seven Samurai’s key players. Yul Brynner serves as an electrifying (and appropriately monk-like) replacement for Takashi Shimura, Steve McQueen turns in a perfectly troubled performance as his lieutenant, and James Coburn is the spitting image of Seiji Miyaguchi, perfectly matching his gaunt frame and quiet, unimpeachable confidence.

In terms of changes, Sturges combines Toshiro Mifune and Isao Kimura’s samurai into a single character, presumably because Mifune’s wild, impressionistic style was simply irreplaceable without the man himself. Several of the samurai have their motivations or personalities tweaked to better embody cowboy archetypes, with Charles Bronson’s personality shifting from “the joker” to “the family man.” And with the always-engaging Eli Wallach (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’s Tuco, among many other roles) serving as the bandit leader, the enemies here are more of an immediate, human threat, rather than a distant, almost environmental danger. Yul Brynner commands total attention at all times, and though Sturges’ camera can’t begin to match Kurosawa’s cinematography, it’s still a well-shot film, if a little overly reliant on sound stages.

Altogether, The Magnificent Seven’s adapted material is unimpeachable, and its own twists on the material are smartly chosen. With an excellent cast and a sturdy director at the helm, The Magnificent Seven is an engaging film in its own right, and a worthy tribute to one of the best films of all time.

And yes, of course there was One Piece. We’ve actually sailed on past Whole Cake Island at this point, and have at long last arrived on the shores of Wano. Whole Cake Island essentially serves as an arc-long interrogation of the meaning of family, something Oda has been considering from a variety of angles all series long. It provides such a cohesive articulation of Oda’s perspective there that I’ve actually got a full article coming on the subject – in the meantime, holy shit, Wano!

It was absolutely wild seeing One Piece undergo such a dramatic aesthetic shift, after so many episodes of the production’s original style. Gone are the series’ traditionally thin linework and relatively flat shading, replaced by bold, ink-reminiscent linework of constantly variable line weight, along with copious new lighting and filter effects. One Piece’s artwork pops in a way it never has before, and this shift in art design has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in animation highlights. For the first time, One Piece is a show that visually demands attention every single episode, rather than one that only really impresses in scattered highlights.

It’s obviously thrilling to see so many beautifully animated One Piece highlights, but at the same time, I’m already feeling a little nostalgic for the old style. Not for its stillness, but for its distinctive focus on thin, complex linework and flat color design, choices which combined to create an aesthetic like little else in shonen. At its best, this style facilitated incredible highlights like the Whiskey Peak episodes, or the entirety of Baron Omatsuri – sequences where consistent character models were entirely abandoned, and animators were free to move their loose interpretations of the Straw Hats in any way possible. Wano’s style is quite impressive, but it’s also a little more familiar to me, whereas One Piece’s original style was a bit more distinct.

Not to say I mind the upgrade, of course – it’s just making me realize what exactly was interesting about One Piece’s earlier style, warts and all. And fortunately, there’s still plenty of that classic One Piece look elsewhere, like in the Strong World film. This week also saw us checking out the first of what are considered One Piece’s modern, “prestige” Toei films, with this one even featuring a script by Oda himself. I wasn’t sure what to expect from an Oda-penned tie-in film, but it turns out the answer was “a One Piece that is hornier for Nami than One Piece has ever been.”

In spite of taking every possible opportunity to linger over her boobs and butt, Strong World also serves as a welcome showcase of Nami’s actual talents, with her navigation skills, adventuring abilities, and unerring loyalty to those she loves all taking center stage. I generally relate to Nami’s attitude the most out of the Straw Hats, so it was nice to see her get such meaty dramatic material – and in terms of battles, the film is quite generous to the Straw Hats at large, and offers plenty of fun ensemble moments for the whole crew. Strong World isn’t a revelation like Baron Omatsuri, but it’s a fun vignette nonetheless, something that anyone who’s taking the long One Piece journey should probably check out.