The Hollywood Theater in Dormont is awesome. $7 movies, $2 popcorn. 2 blocks from the T--what is there not to love?-----
Let me put your worries to rest; Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos is nothing like the movie that wrapped up the original 2003 series, Conqueror of Shamballa. Instead, it's like one of the light novels: all bright colors and beautiful landscapes and rollicking action with a nice dose of tasteful humor. Milos is a stand-alone piece that can be set ambiguously any time after Al remembers the gate of Truth--although fans of the series might question when exactly they had time to go to Table City since Arakawa keeps the timeline very tight. But such things matter very little to fans who have been waiting for this movie ever since the final depressing notes of Shamballa.
As is the norm with anime movies, familiarity with the series is a bonus, not a requirement. All necessary information is given to the audience within the first half-hour. Ed is the Fullmetal Alchemist, and as such, a member of the Amestrian military. Al is his brother. They lost their respective body parts attempting to transmute their mother. Gate of Truth = bad. Thus ends any plot points from the original series that are needed to understand the film. Two new characters, Ashley and Julia Crichton, are children in the country/land of Milos. Their parents are alchemists, and scorned by the other Milosians. They are forced out of their homeland, and their parents are killed some years later. Around six years after that, on the night of the Harvest Festival, an alchemist who appears to be an older Ashley Crichton, breaks out of prison in Central. The reason? A news article about Julia Crichton getting captured by Amestrian border guards. Ed and Al encounter the escaped prisoner on his way out, have a spectacular alchemy battle, and are thus involved in the case and must go to Table City to investigate. There, they become mixed up in a crazy plot of rebels, wolf chimeras, the escaped alchemist, Julia Crichton, and an abused ethnic group living in the slums on the verge of extinction.
If there's one thing Fullmetal Alchemist is good at, it's making you feel for the people society has trampled on. There's something to be said for a series that can't have an episode or movie without a significant element of social justice. The Milosians are roughly equivalent to the Ishvalans of both anime series or the Roma people of Shamballa, but are thankfully distinct from both. Their design seems inspired by people of southern North America, but I'm not very confident making that guess. Their plight of being forced out of their holy land and into the desolate canyon can be found in real-world examples of Tibet, the Balkans, or Paletstine. Some inspiration also lies in Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which I'll cover in more detail later. Whatever their design inspirations, the Milosians are at least visually distinct from their plot-device siblings in other FMA media, if not particularly unique to the plot. The important Milosian characters also boast distinctive character types and designs, most of which do not have any easily discernible character-type twins.
The animation is at movie quality, which is to say it's really frackin' cool. The obvious!CG is much less obvious this time around and used much more effectively. No jerky CG armor armies in this movie. The fight scenes are well-done, many, and with only one exception, very easy to follow. The lone confusing one (and that confusion was only slight) seems to draw inspiration from Gainax, so I'll let it slide because it still looked really cool. Julia, Ashley, and Miranda were my favorite character designs. Soyuz was my least, because I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be some kind of joke about Lieutenant Yoki or if it was just a coincidence. Backgrounds were one of the high points. From the Badlands-inspired Table City to the underground caves of Milos, to the beautiful Milosian architecture, every setting of this movie was carefully crafted. The series' subtle steampunk got a boost in the Black Bats and their flying contraptions. The color scheme is much brighter and varied than Shamballa, the 2003 series, and the latter half of Brotherhood, which was a refreshing change. The overall look of the movie was very comic-book inspired, not just from the original manga, but with the sort of action-adventure feel that the actual FMA series doesn't quite reach due to its serious and complicated nature.
Part of that action-adventure had its roots in the works of Miyazaki, most notably Nausicaa. There were at least three distinct Nausicaa-inspired moments, not to mention the Milosian design, the flying contraptions, and Ashley's character design. Julia got have herself a Miyazaki-angry-hair-poof-- (is there an actual term for this phenomena?)--that thing that happens when the leading lady of a Miyazaki movie gets angry and spends a moment just staring at whatever's making her angry and her hair starts to stand up. Combined with Julia's orange hair, the moment was an obvious tribute, and it was delightful. I almost stood up and cheered right there in the theater. Director Kazuya Murata, who has worked on other Bones properties, including directing some episodes of Eureka Seven and Code Geass, gets an "A" in my book any day. I also am very interested to know if the Harry Potter reference was intentional or not.
Shout-outs to fans of the original series are done sparingly, and Mustang, Hawkeye, and Winry are included, but not exactly necessary to anything at all. The three of them weren't awkward, but their presence still wasn't as smooth as it could have been. I mistakenly thought we'd get the Roy-Winry conversation we never got in Shamballa before I remembered that the whole reason for that conversation doesn't exist in Brotherhood. But there were some cool shots of Winry and Riza on the train, comparing the two characters and by proxy, Ed and Roy. It left fans with something interesting to reflect on, and also some good footage for AMVs. I really can't complain about the three of them when judging this as a stand-alone movie. Their voice actors were all at the top of their game, and all got some really nice lines, so they were satisfying to fans of the series. Newcomers will probably hate them, but newcomers really should go back and watch the actual show.
Voice acting on the whole was what one expects from FUNimation. All the main characters were great; a couple of the minor ones were pretty cheesy, but acceptable all the same. It's the one-line background characters that really get the worst treatment, but as their contributions are minimal, Vic and Maxey make up for them. Maxey Whitehead deserves some kind of award for pleasing fans of something as huge as FMA. She not only is a great voice actress in her own right, she is able to perfectly match the voice and character Aaron Dismuke created in the 2003 series. Alexis Tipton (Julia) and Matthew Mercer (credited as the character "Melvin Voyager") were both newcomers to me, and fooled me into thinking they might have been respectively Stephanie Sheh and Crispin Freeman, so that ought to speak for their performances. FUNi's translation was great, as always. There wasn't a character in the whole movie that made me think their voice actor was undeserving of the role. Music was also excellent, both with score and theme songs.
Overall, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos might not be as life-changing or philosophical as the manga, Brotherhood, or the 2003 original series. But those are each long works, 23 volumes, 64 episodes, and 51 episodes, respectively. Shamballa tried to mimic the philosophy of its series, and all it did was depress people. FMA as a series is much more than just a fun action-adventure. But sometimes, we all need a bit of good, clean fun to balance our complicated plots and musings on the nature of life and death. That's not to say that Milos is without any substance. On the contrary, it, like its roots, addresses the topics of genocide, racism, segregation, familial bonds, the abuse of power, and the nature of right and wrong. Not all characters make moral choices all the time. They're flawed. They're well-developed. They also kick ass and take names. And when I look back at Milos, I will remember the action, the gorgeous animation, the plot twists, the deliciously evil villains, and then the social justice and if certain questionable actions were morally or philosophically justified.
I think Ed sums up the balance between philosophy and action best. "I don't think you did the right thing. But you were still pretty awesome."
+ backgrounds, animation in general, great action-adventure accessible to fans and non-fans alike
- a little confusing in the middle; non-fans will probably wonder what a "transmutation circle" is; did they ever say the law of equivalent exchange?
Rating: A
