Full Metal Alchemist Live Action Netflix Review
By Nightmare Actual
I have another little review for you, today. I felt compelled at the end of watching this movie, to make this review. We are going to talk about the movie Full Metal Alchemist the live-action Netflix version.
Few things, obviously there’s the source material which I am a huge admirer of and then there’s the live action feature. Somewhat of a lemon and oranges thing. Similar yet very different. While I watched it I tried to keep them separate from one another, which is always a good thing.
As far as live action films go, making the magic work is more difficult, making the experience aesthetically believable. Even so, I had a good time while watching this and I hope everyone who watches it enjoys it as much as I did. We all know how critical fans can be, so I am not going to use that perspective and maintain neutrality when making this review of FullMetal Alchemist.
This is the synopsis of FullMetal Alchemist on Netflix: “While the alchemist Eduard Elric searches for a way to restore his little brother Alphonse Elric’s body, the military government and some mysterious monsters are watching closely.”
The brother’s tried to experiment with something that is a huge taboo among alchemists, transmuting humans out of nothing. Alchemists within the fiction, all have huge ethical, philosophical, spiritual and psychological conflicts with that concept. I am not going to go very much into detail about that in doing so I would ruin, in my opinion, a lot of the experience the pacing and development of the story have.
(Reminding ourselves that we are not going to compare it to the anime because we would scream)
The film FullMetal Alchemist has a lot of elements that I believe can be very hard to interpret in a live-action feature as opposed to animated reactions. Those exaggerated reactions common in these types of animated films, you would not normally see. I personally have no frame of reference as far as Japanese made films go but going into this in an unbiased aspect I didn’t feel bothered by them.
The movie feels like a live action animation, I myself am somewhat new to the genre. Used to watch a few unique gems back in the 1990s. One show I remember I really enjoyed was Ronin Warriors. Another early memory I have was when I watched Akira for the first time and being completely blown away. Re-watching it years later and still feeling like “What the f*ck just happened?” in a really good unique way.
Something I really enjoyed about the film was the visuals, even though sometimes a little rough. You have to remember the concept of this specific anime and translating that into live action visuals (which I am sure can be said about a lot of anime and animated films out there) is going to be pretty difficult to make it to a point where you feel immersed into what’s going on.
A lot of reviewers will argue that there’s a lot missing and I believe that’s because those people went into it with very high hopes and expectations, which a lot of the times can be detrimental to one’s experience. If you try to compare this film to the source material. of course…
(“You’re gonna have a bad time”)
The anime is an amazing story, to say the least, furthermore, the creators and animators really outdid themselves with the pacing, visuals, the storylines, the twists and the surprises the things that happen that keep the story going all throughout the series.
Then watching something that’s kind of the same but in reality, it lacks so much of the stuff that made the other thing great. So you can kind of see why people would be disappointed by that. I myself can understand “why?” but witnessing this film with neutral eyes helps me to just enjoy the movie. I believe that this could the start of something really good. Something for a new generation maybe who don’t watch anime experience the same things we do when we watch animes.
I do think this could be something good, as well for others reasons. Hopefully, they keep the momentum going by bringing in some more surprises. For example, one character I would’ve really liked to see was Scar. He is such an amazing character and when you see how it all fits into the story behind the story. Hopefully, he has some screen time in future instances. Another character I would’ve loved to see was Mei Chang and her little cat (It’s actually a Panda, running joke on the series though).
Well, this has been another little review from Nightmare-ACTUAL. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read this sweet little nothing and thanks to Stack Up for giving me the opportunity to crazy glue words together and make some literal sense.
Cheers everyone, this is Nightmare, out.