"Fullmetal Alchemist the Revenge of the Scar" is the second installment to its predecessor ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ released in 2017. It is a story about a mysterious figure belonging seeking revenge against the State Alchemists because of the tragedies during the war, leaving the youngest State Alchemist in the history of Amestris, Edward Alric, and his brother Alphonse vulnerable to an attack along with any others.
The movie is a testimony to why popular anime adapted from manga shouldn’t be brought to live action. The story is ambitious enough that imagines a fantasy world with a plot that as a subject matter requires the setting to deliver the same authentic look that the anime/manga delivers. So, when the anime has already done the adaptation part well, one would simply expect the live-action movie at the very least, to deliver a satisfactory experience.
There is no shame in admitting that some of the things just work well when they are animated, and that is something this movie didn’t take into account. It is hard to take things seriously when everybody just feels like cosplaying the characters from the manga, with abilities out of the world. When you have a certain image of the character already predetermined, the comparison is inevitable, however, the movie doesn’t help itself either. Everything about it just feels very casual from the fights to the dialogues.
The plot is too raw, with everlasting distractions with a side plot that constantly thrives in driving you away from the important things happening. The interconnectivity of both the stories is executed in such a way that it results in a weird fusion that is directly aimed at involving more characters in the threshold since they released the one-dimensional angle of the revenge story of Scar, with weirdly enough Edward still eating up the chunk of important time with his silly side quests. More importantly, the flashbacks that insight us about Scar’s motivation and intent behind his rage are very much taken for granted as they fit into the narrative in a very linear format usually involving a certain action that triggers these overwhelming emotions within him.
The more the movie drags on, the less interesting the fights involving the power of alchemy get. At first, one might be interested in the use of powers in this particular realm, but they offer very little creativity wise. There was pretty less focus on the variability of the range of attack, and I couldn’t help but fathom the unreliable power scaling within the movie. The character of Scar is inevitable at first, but just becomes less of a threat artillery-wise. The first impression of Scar is not the last impression you have of him, and while it can be good in certain aspects as you start to know more about him, he just loses credibility as a powerful opponent.
In conclusion, if you are interested in knowing the story, you should read the source, rather than watching this movie, because it’s inevitable that you start losing interest in it.
Final Score – [3/10]
Reviewed by - Devyansh Anand
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