Fullmetal Alchemist (2018)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Beautiful, moving film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Okay, So I know any live action anime adaptation will usually have its fair share of issues but the way it was written makes no sense regardless if you know the story or have never seen it before. Everything seemed forced, I watched this with my brothers, one of which has never seen the anime or manga, and they tried to cram so much backstory in that they lose most of the value. We get only small glimpses into the character's lives that if you are not already aware of their backstories the characters become nearly meaningless. Not to mention they created a really forced ending which only had a very vague resemblance to the source material. It would have been far better to have split this up into multiple movies or even made an entirely new plot. The CG wasn't near as bad as I was expecting,but overall the best part of the movie was set design and costumes. The acting was definitely sub par, at times it felt like the actors were emotionless. The english dub on Netflix was bad, characters would all be in the same room and Edward's voice sounded at times like he was far away. On top of that there was a scene where Edward punched a wall and they forgot to put in the sound, It was bad enough me and my brothers broke out laughing at how bad it was.

The film starts off good enough but loses emotional steam after the first half. You stop caring about the characters which leaves you to focus on very dry action. What I gather is that the source material must be incredibly emotional and engaging but the film just fails in bringing it to life.

I never got time to watch the anime. Therefore I watch the movie with full expectation, even plan to buy the TV series if I love the movie. Turn out that I choose to spend my time wisely. The worst anime I guess that not live to the hypeAlthough the title is Fullmetal Alchemist, mean the 2 brother is Alchemist expert The problem is the fun is only at the beginning of the movie during the chase of stone. From there everything goes so bad. All I can see is Al crying, screaming in frustation, getting angry but not the skillful alchemist like in the beginningMaybe 2 hour is too short to put in long TV Anime However the story is really bad.Looks like there is part 2. But I will never look back again Enough is enough

Then I scrolled through the reviews and realize the earliest critics throwing low stars were all anime fans who prefer cartoons. Personally I've never even been able to watch Pokemon for more than 5 minutes without getting a headache so I wouldn't even try to watch a Japanese cartoon with this much story line. Once this movie gets proper recognition for what it is, a movie based on comic book drawings much like the Marvel series, it will probably grow with cult like popularity. It's really good. The cinematography and CGI are fantastic and while the Japanese acting is over the top dramatic the stories good enough to make up for it. Even the stuff that came off like a scene from the CGI Scooby Doo movies somehow worked. I predict this will gain a bigger audience and appreciation now that it's on Netflix. I didn't even mind the subtitles. Best damn foreign film I've seen since The Wave. Hope there's a sequel.