Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Kanketsu-hen - Saigo no Rensei

THE FINAL ALCHEMY is the final instalment of the FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST trilogy...and thank heavens for that! It was shot back to back with the second film, and while I didn't particularly like that or the first one, this one is astonishingly bad, complete with CGI that would look out of place in a modern video game. It's a bloated, overlong affair which mainly consists of different characters squaring up to each other and making various threats while CGI swirls and flows in the background. Some of the visuals are okay, but as a competent, coherent film this is a huge mess and has to rank as a disappointment whichever way you look at it.

They skip on the special effects, not sure how much budget they had for this movie but i have seen all 3 of them, and the special effects will make you cringe.

I guess this is why i am more a fan of the animation series and movie than the live movies.

The live movies are not all that bad, the story is good, lots of things are going on, but sometimes it's hard to get past the bad special effects.

I really hope if they do decide to remake theses movie they put more budget on the special effects and CGI to actually make it believable.

Some of the effects with monster have the bad quality of the asylum movies which is very sad.

Objectively, this film deserves a rating of 4/10, or 5/10. Without knowledge of manga/anime, it is difficult to understand what is happening on the screen. The story starts from the middle, the threads are suddenly interrupted, only to return at the end of the film (I will skip the example so as not to spoil, but it is enough to see this film to understand what I am talking about) and the characters don't have a moment to be well portrayed.

The choreography of the fights is tragic. They wave their arms like paralytics, shoot from their hands like Spiderman, and as if that wasn't enough, transmutation is shown in a primitive way, as if someone animated it in stop motion in Paint. In general, this film looks a bit like an amateur work created by fans.

So why did I give it a 6/10? I even had fun on it. It was fun to remember this story. That a completely new way of presenting this story about brotherhood and bravery is ok as a one-time experience for a fan of the series. This is nothing fantastic. It's an average film at best, trying to cram several dozen hours of an animated series into less than two hours of film. It's not hard to imagine how this film came out, since he so desperately wanted to tell the whole story of the brothers.

This movie is by no means perfect, but I still had a lot of fun watching it. No live action adaptation of an anime is ever going to be good, especially when they're working with 27 volumes. Still, it was a fun watch.

Uchino as Hohenheim is by far my favorite part of the film, and seeing his ending scene with Trisha was really sweet. I was always bummed that hadn't made it into the anime, so I'm glad this film included it. Also, his voice acting for Father as a blob was really enjoyable! I was also happy they included Hohenheim's "vintage armor" line, as the anime didn't. Overall, I think these films do a better job at adapting Hohenheim's funnier/softer side than the anime does, but that's just me.

The CGI was definitely not great, but I was able to look past it.

My main complaint was how long this film was. I think cutting out the Briggs stuff entirely would have benefitted them. As much as I liked that arc in the manga, it didn't work here. I think they could have removed it, and still made the film work. Still, Olivier's actress was really spot on.

I also felt the ending scene was a bit awkward, as they only show one image of Edward while no music plays. I think it would have been cute to show multiple cast photos, like the manga does, along with some music.

Speaking of music, the score for these films is really disappointing. Especially if you've seen both the 2003 anime and Brotherhood, the scores there are incredible.

Overall, the main parts I enjoyed were Hohenheim's scenes. I'm a sucker for hot dads with depression.

I certainly wouldn't recommend these movies to people with no knowledge of the manga or anime, but if you are a fan then sure, watch 'em. Just don't go in expecting anything groundbreaking. These movies are just fanservice at the end of the day.