ehalcomb: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: The Sacred Star of Milos || Anime Movie Review w/ SPOILERS

I absolutely love Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I has to be in my top three anime of all time if not my favorite. Naturally, when I saw that there was also a follow-up movie for this 2009 version of the tale I was skeptical. The Sacred Star of Milos did have a different director but it was still under the same studio so I didn't really know what to thing. I should have gone in with little expectation. This movie isn't very good. The style and setup is great but quickly becomes generic and predicable.

The story of The Sacred Star of Milos takes place during the Brotherhood storyline, oddly enough. The audience never knows specifically when but from what I could gather it takes place after Alphonse remembers "the truth" (thus he is able to transmute without a circle) but before the brothers know of Father's plans of sacrifice. This bugs me. Because of the pace that the anime has I just don't see anyway that anything other than their main mission could take place between the these two plot points. Before or after, sure, but it's just odd that they chose this scenario of events to play around with in the first place. After doing some research, however, I have found that most of the fanbase doesn't consider this story canon so I don't really know what to think.

Anyway, at the start of the film we are introdced to two siblings, Julia and Ashleigh (strange spelling) Crichton, whose parents are famous alchemists around these parts. Two wolf chimeras slip into their house while they are distracted and kill the father and mother while Ashleigh escapes leaving Julia to fend for herself. Years later, Ed and Al are celebrating the generic Amestris harvest festival when suddenly a powerful Alchemist escapes from Prison and, when the brothers try to confront him, they are unable to detain him because of his strange alchemy. After a short investigation run by Mustang, they discover that this mysterious man is after a girl from Creta named Julia who has been recently detained for illegally immigrating to Amestris. With this information, Edward and Alphonse Elric travel to Table City on the border between Creta and Amestris to learn about this strange alchemy and capture the man.

I do like the premise here. All of the above takes up the first fifteen minutes of the film and I was never disinterested. I truly wanted to see where this went. When the brothers actually get into Table City is when the problems start. On the ride there, the train gets attacked by a group of gliding militants and Ed and Al have to fight both them and a wolf chimera. This action scene doesn't just look amazing but it creates a sense that something isn't quite right because of the warring factions. Then after they find Julia everybody makes up and the story turns into every Fullmetal Alchemist plot ever with the bad guys trying to create a Philosopher's Stone by sacrificing the story. We've seen it a hundred times and it's getting boring now.

It makes me upset because the film started out so incredibly strong with motivations other than "get the stone." We could have had Ed and Al taking sides with the mysterious man or the faction of militants who call themselves the Black Bats. Or maybe the brothers had to try to get them to work together in order to fend off either the Amestrian or Cretan military. Or the plot could have been weaved into the Brotherhood plotline nicely with meaningful conversations about Chimeras or Humunculi. After the first half hour of the film it feels tedious because of how similar it is to everything else Fullmetal Alchemist. Just another story about douche-canoes wanting more power through the Philosopher's Stone.

Despite the story and theming problems, the movie isn't all bad. The animation is top notch but I am very torn on the style. It's hard to explain.

Take this:

Versus this:

The main thing that I notice is the line composition. The Sacred Star of Milos clip is hard and rough while the similar Brotherhood clip is soft and clean. The style is different but not necessarily bad. It just took me a long time to get used to. The music is also very good. The nation of Creta is based on real-world Spain so, fittingly, the music takes a lot of inspiration from that region and culture. It isn't anything to write home about but I do appreciate the fact that the creators of Fullmetal Alchemist do their research on everything from architecture to music.

If you've seen the plot of the 2003 FMA or Brotherhood than you've seen The Sacred Star of Milos. The animation and music is different and interesting in its own right and the film starts out strong but the entire experience is predictable and honestly boring.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: The Sacred Star of Milos is not interesting but any FMA fan should still give it a watch.