Originally released in Japanese theaters last December, Netflix has picked up the long-awaited live-action take on the much beloved Fullmetal Alchemist franchise. Coming a few years after an extremely successful, more faithful to the manga, anime reboot ‘Brotherhood’, the FMA film covers (or at least attempts to) the first half of the 27 volume/108 chapter source material into a solid 2+ hours. Edward and Alphonse Elric are alchemist searching for the powerful Philosopher’s Stone which they intend to use to restore their bodies back to normal, however as the film goes on they learn that the process required to create the stone is less than ideal.

Fullmetal Alchemist is a 2017 live-action adaptation of the 2001 dark fantasy shounen manga of the same name, it is produced by Oxybot Inc & Square Enix, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

Editor’s Note: This review for Fullmetal Alchemist may contain near complete to complete spoilers for the film, as well as potential spoilers for both the manga and its two anime adaptations. 

Fullmetal Alchemist finally gets a live-action film and it’s going to be very love and hate with fans of either of the previous versions of the series.

When the news got of out of a live-action adaptation of the worldwide manga/anime phenomenon that is Fullmetal Alchemist most people were ecstatic, though some had some natural reservations (especially after the eventually disappointing Attack on Titan adaptation). However, trailers and what little bit of the film was slowly shown off had some promise. As a fan who has seen both anime adaptations and their respective films as well as read most of the original manga, I’m a little at odds with what to think. The film is at least very dedicated with the amount of time given to cover the first 30 or so chapters, but a number of story changes and missing characters effect the overall package and pace of the film.

Edward Elric (left), Winry Rockbell (middle), and Alphonse Elric (right) as they appear in the film.

THE GOOD: This review is coming from the perspective of someone who’s a huge fan of the source material not counting one of the obvious series like Dragon Ball, Fullmetal Alchemist is actually the series which launched my love for anime & manga, so my watch of this film was actually fairly tough. I don’t exactly know how to completely feel about it as there was a lot that I did enjoy, but then there’s just some stuff that felt inexcusable which I’ll detail later on. For starters, one of the things I did enjoy was the acting performances, most of them including Ryosuke Yamada (Ed), Atomu Mizuishi (Al (voiced)), and Dean Fujioka (Roy Mustang) were standouts in my opinion. Visuals were pretty solid for using American CG technology in a Japanese produced film and did a mostly excellent job emulating the imagery of the anime.

FMA Live-Action does a decent job bringing the source material to screen visually.

The film covers most of the ins and outs of the area that it’s focused on which is from the Father Lior up to the Laboratory 5 arcs. Most of what’s seen in the manga and the anime (more so Brotherhood) is present in the film including the ever so increasingly depressing Nina scene in which state alchemist Shou Tucker turned his daughter Nina and pet dog into a Chimera, and it’s just as emotionally devastating here as it is in the manga and anime. You have to give director Fumihiko Sori credit as he tries his absolute best to make it the most reasonable adaption possible. However his focus on Ed, Al, and Winry as the more central characters of the film greatly effected the story and direction & because of this many characters end up going missing.

Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye have a strong presence in the film.

THE BAD: As I previously brought up the film has a ton of missing characters three in particular who are quite important to the FMA story are Izumi Curtis, Pride, and Father. As Fullmetal Alchemist fans should know Izumi is the alchemy teacher of Ed and Al, in fact they discovered that it was possible to transmute without the use of circles upon their initial meeting. Having such an important character to not only the overall story of the series, but the background of Edward and Alphonse is just a little too ridiculous. In regards to the Homunculi Pride & Father you could use the excuse of sequel baiting. However, given how early Izumi is introduced into the series and how the film just shoots past that point it opens itself up to a fair amount of plot holes. Going back to Pride and Father, the core Homunculi focus goes to Lust, Envy, and Gluttony. This is understandable given that they’re the first introduced in all previous versions of the series, but the film just opts to ignore the remaining Homunculi in complete favor of the former which again opens a number of plot holes for the potential sequel, which will like suffer from quite a bit of story placement.

While not the live-action attempts fans want, it’s certainly worth a watch.

Another issue with the film was it’s attempt at mirroring the oddball comedy of the manga and anime. Though a valiant effort it unfortunately falls short due to the limited range and unconvincing approach at comedy by actor Ryosuke Yamada. Early I praised him for most of his performance throughout the film, but his flaws are increasingly clear whenever a scene attempted to bring about laughs, which the manga & anime had an odd way of doing quite successfully despite it’s dark tone and story.

The grim tale of two brothers is brought to life in live-action but the issues surrounding live-action anime adaptations is quite visible here.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Fullmetal Alchemist live-action is a bit of a disappointment, while not necessarily as disappointing as the Attack on Titan live-action duology, it has it’s own share of problems when bringing the beloved titular character to life. Missing characters and poor comedic performances hold the film back from it’s high level of potential, though some of these can be fixed with a second attempt in what’s a likely two part film. Otaku Dome gives Fullmetal Alchemist a 69 out of 100.