dir. Fumihiko Sori
The really disappointing thing about the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist is the fact that the source material is amazing. The 2000s manga and anime series told the tragic tale of brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric with beautiful visuals, complex character development, and meticulous storyline pacing. That last one is especially crucial when you look at the live-action iteration, which proudly tries to tell four manga volumes’ worth of plot in two and a quarter hours. Cue: people churning out wordy exposition at rapid-fire speed; no one spending more than about three minutes in any given location before moving on to the next scenario; characters so thinly-drawn that the villains might as well spend their time on-screen winking and cackling directly at the camera; CGI so poor and fake-looking that you can practically see the tennis balls on string; unbelievably hammy acting from a bunch of grown adults striving to convince the audience that they’re actually teenagers; and an abundance of terrible, terrible wigs. This movie’s complete lack of redeeming features simply proves that there was never any need for a live-action Fullmetal Alchemist to be made.
BMDb 