good back-story, and good acting

Captivating movie !

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There are massive spoilers ahead for the show, if you haven't seen it - I would suggest watching it, it's probably the first 10/10 I've given a show in years, I'll also say you probably will be extremely lost in this review regardless. Well, if you're like me and thought the ending of after about 15 hours of the show ended terribly with Alphonse looking for a way to bring his brother back from beyond the gate, learning nothing from his entire experiences on the show because they wiped his memories and having one of the best sibling relationships ever conveyed in a TV Show ending with them separated across worlds and Edward still having a prosthetic leg and arm that looks too advanced for the technology back then and asking no questions about it at all among many other things. Here, this is the ending for those that pretty much said "WHAT THE F#CK!!!!!" to it, I'll say the ending in general is passable but underwhelming.Edward casually tells our world's version of Alphonse (I'll get to that later) about his exploits across the gate and ensures that yes, it was where he came from. When going to a carnival Edward saves a psychic gypsy from the ever-growing Nazi's but the Nazi's go full-on comic book super-villain when they decide to walk through to the world Edward is from to conquer it and bring back whatever weaponry they have so the Nazi's can take over the world. Meanwhile Alphonse (as in Edward's brother) is a trained alchemist looking for a way to get through to the other side of the gate to get Edward back.Okay, the story is very convoluted and... well, dare I say terrible? I'd say this is passable if you're a fan of the show but if you haven't seen the hours and hours and hours of the 2003 show beforehand, this would be about as easy to follow as a moth in a snowstorm. I'll also say that the whole other versions of the same character in the show popping up makes no sense to me. It just seems like service to the fans to say "Hughes is in this, and so is Edward and Al's mom, Alphonse and pretty much every character that dies makes an appearance in this movie." I'll say seeing the relatively minor characters make an appearance is very good because it gives a much better moment of closure than the show did. I also might not call the real world counterparts service to the fans because the dead characters seemingly have the opposite personalities that are in the show and they do NOTHING with it! And while I'm on the subject I don't really like the new ending of "They're in pre WWII Germany hanging out with gypsies but at least they're together"... To me that is not satisfying.Onto the compliments, the animation is much better here than at any other point in the show, it looks so good. The same with the voice acting as well, it's basically top notch. I'll also say if you are a fan of the show like I am than there are moments of drama in here that work so well. I love the scene where Edward says he has to pilot the Nazi-zombie spaceships (no... really, I said I don't like this movie's plot!) back through to the real world and destroy the portal from that side is really well done seeing Alphonse's reaction to it. If you think too hard about scenes like that however, it doesn't really work (especially considering Edward was the only one who could open the damn portal from that side! Whoops!).So... If you're a fan of the show this is a step down. I will say because of my love for the show and it ending in a way that was less awful than the show itself, it's a guilty pleasure of mine. I am glad I saw it but hearing the fan community be polarized on this movie is hardly surprising to me. I can see why some people don't like it but for me, I actually do.

The ending was disappointing in my opinion. I won't say what happens, but I was really enjoying this movie being a fan of both TV series and the manga until this movie ended. I mean, really, the ending is everything to a movie. The greatness of both anime series is almost beyond words, and it's up there on the list with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Gin Tama of top twenty anime series of all time.So why did the ending of the movie leave me unsatisfied and somewhat depressed? Because it was unsatisfying, I wonder what the writers were thinking?Well, I'm done complaining about the ending, now for the positive: the story is STILL good in my opinion (until the ending), and the animation is awesome and seems to improve from the first series (please note that this movie is a finale to the first animated series ONLY and is in no way associated with Brotherhood) animation. Seeing the characters grown up a bit was neat and the plot revolving around two alternate worlds is always good if it's done right (which it was, until the ending), without being too damn confusing to follow.Now, for the basic outline of the story: Ed and an alternate world Al are now studying rocket science, since in that world alchemy doesn't exist. But then a certain 'nice' lady wants to open up the portal to Ed's original world where alchemy DOES exist to find the legendary Shangri-La, opening an opportunity for Ed to get back home.Overall, 7/10. If it wasn't for the ending it would get another point added.

I absolutely love the anime series! Everything about the series was awesome. I needed something to watch so I decided to pick it up one day and I love it. Its got a great story, excellent characters, character development, and the animation is awesome. I recommend it to anyone that likes anime or if you are just looking for something to watch.Now....when I finished the series I just had to know what happened next! So I paid 5 extra bucks on shipping and handling to get the movie faster.....it wasn't worth the 5 extra bucks...I don't really want to ruin anything for people that haven't seen it. The story line was only okay. it seemed like it was missing something though. Like some of the characters weren't right and the relationships didn't seem right or something. I guess I expected better reunions and stuff and like some stuff seemed like it was just thrown in there. I didn't like how Al stole Eds original look either. ANd they should have had more of Mustang, Winry, and some other the other characters. i don't know. And they also used CGI in with the drawing. I personally don't like when they use the computer stuff with the normal anime. If you know what I mean. I didn't like the ending either. Its not the way I would have ended it at least. Ed and Al should have ended up in their side of the gate. And Ed should have ended up with Winry.Its not like super terrible though. There were some good fight scenes and still the good animation(except for the CGI stuff). Edwards look is cool and he looks older. It was disappointing I guess is the way to sum it up. The series was just so awesome that I expected so much from the movie and it was just a letdown. Not the ending I wanted :( But you should see it and form your own opinion.

First off, I am critical of this movie because I really had high hopes and instead, this movie sucked.*possible spoilers* (if you haven't seen the TV series) Where to begin??? Well, let's start at the quality. The movie was barely better than the original TV series and the two fight scenes were very nicely crafted. However the CGI was horrid.Then there is the plot holes and questions that still remain after the whole movie is all said and done. This movie does not close off as a successful conclusion to a very broad universe known as FMA and only returns to expand the universe more before leaving us with nothing but our imaginations to decipher what would happen in the future.And then there is the stories biggest fault. Adding WWII and Hitler... WHY ?? The series was perfect... and didn't need Hitler. It didn't even need Germany.Overall the entire movie was sorely lacing in what a true FMA movie could have been and if I were the directors, I'd scrap CoS and make a new, more "ending", ending.